Month: February 2007

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Blingo!

Just won another Blingo! I didn’t see an iTunes GC option this time and it seems to have automatically selected movie ticket for me. Also, a few months ago, well the last time I won, which was back in August ’06, they had updated the system so that you got your prize immediately. No more waiting 6 weeks or so before getting your iTunes GC code or for them to mail your Blingo movie ticket. Now, you get the code immediately and as for the movie ticket, as it turns out, you get a Fandago Movie Ticket. Pretty neat!

The code for your Fandango Movie Ticket is **********.

To redeem your code, go to http://www.fandango.com/blingo/

Your code expires on December 31, 2007.

Blingo

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Ys – The Oath in Felghana

So I’ve been playing a new game called Ys – The Oath in Felghana (which is basically Ys III), a Japanese Action RPG. You can watch the trailer here. Goshtic first introduced me to Ys awhile back when he was playing Ys I and Ys II and uploaded some gameplay videos to me. The gameplay was awesome and really neat, but unfortunately it was in Japanese and given that it’s an RPG, it either meant I had to cheat (look at walkthrough) or not understand what I need to do.

However, Angelus brings to my attention a few days back that there have been people who have been translating the Ys series. The newest fan-translated is Ys – The Oath in Felghana. The person who has been working on these patches is Nightwolve. Unfortunately, the Felghana patch is still being worked on and the final version isn’t out yet. Unfortunately the beta translation patch for The Oath in Felghana isn’t posted on their site, but you should be able find it at your closest bittorrent index. The final translation patch for Ys I and Ys II are however posted, which I might get to after I finish The Oath in Felghana. A new Ys game seems to be released or will be releasing soon called Origin.

The game so far is like all typical RPGs. You’re some adventurer traveling through cities. Monsters started appearing out of nowhere. You help and you start to get to the bottom of this. You realize you have a special power and you get strong. The cool thing about Action RPGs is the fact it’s real-time and not turn based. So you just keep whacking enemies until they die.

I did hit a problem initially where the screen would black out and I was trapped inside this window. It didn’t respond to CTRL+ALT+DEL or WIN+L. I knew my machine wasn’t frozen because I could still see some mouse movement. Doesn’t this sound exactly like something else? ;p I wonder if desktop switcher would’ve worked here. I logged into another box of mine and remotely killed the application and was returned to my regular screen.

After searching online for the problem, apparently it has issues with ffdshow: Bug Report: FFDSHOW incompatibility. If you go into ffdshow’s video decoder configuration, in Info & Debug, add “YSF_Win.exe;” into Don’t use ffdshow in. After setting that, the game started up fine.

Random Crap:

Bathe in chocolate this Valentine’s Day – A Japanese spa is offering the perfect aphrodisiac for Valentine’s Day — chocolate baths. I’ve always wanted to jump into that chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Incredible Hand Made Sunglasses – Today you can see another “How to” video, but a video that will blow you away.You will see how people in China can make some amazing sunglasses.Now we have factories that make this work but China is providing what every company is looking for “low cost manufacturing”, that can maximize their profits.Now you can figure out how some people sell sunglasses just for $2.00.

Dishmaker: Never Wash Another Dish? (from Digg) – We actually linked to this story from Treehugger about a year ago, but with the advent of YouTube there is renewed interest in the product…at least to me. While the dishmaker appears unwieldy, this “dishwasher sized” apparatus can actually replace cabinets worth of dishes by storing them as flat disks. Only a small amount of pressure and heat is necessary to reshape the acrylic into a bowl (and back).

How To Open A Jar – The video features several different methods for opening stubborn jars, complete with scary zombie-like infomercial-style clapping as each jar falls. 3 easy ways to open a tightly sealed jar. I like the rubber band method.

Confessions of an eBay opium addict – A pleasure trip to the Internet auction site sent me into the hell of opium addiction. Could death be the only redemption? A guy gets addicted to poppy seeds which he was able to acquire in bulk from a “seed” seller.

We Didn’t Start This Website! (from Deadlock) – I don’t usually post YTMND (which I found out means You’re the Man Now, Dog), but this one’s tune was catchy and is a compilation of all the other YTMND websites.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire – What is the first name of George W. Bush? (from Digg) – This is the German version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? She was asked “Wie heisst George W. Bush mit Vornamen?” which I can only assume is the $100 (equivalent) question. That question translates to “What is George W. Bush’s first name?” After using 50/50 and doing a audience poll, she still got it wrong. I’m also very shocked with the response where 42% of the audience thought George W. Bush’s first name is Edmund. Did we ever have a president named Edmund?

Valued Customer… (from Digg) – After hearing yet another story of someone hitting the “invisible wall” on Comcast and getting the boot for a year, as a valued Comcast customer (I pay one of my scripters Internet bill, so the account is in my name) I decided to see what Comcast support officially had to say about the issue. I made up a story about a friend that had been booted off, and after a few minute wait to get into chat, the below transpired. Sorry about the image, it turns out you cant copy/paste a Comcast chat after it has finished. (don’t mind the spelling and typos, I was using my notebook on my lap. I’m sure you can all read “typing fast speak” anyways) From the conversation: While I am not able to locate a cap, I have been informed that it is around 200 Gigabytes in a month. Hmmmm, I’ve been awfully close.

Hot or Not Composite Images (from RayAlome) – a project where they grabbed all the images and ratings from hotornot.com and did an average composite of each rating range. The average face (as psychology also claims) is rather cute. 🙂

Uh Oh, Gmail Just Got Perfect (from Digg) – Google quietly added a small feature to Gmail this week called Mail Fetcher. When that feature launched, Gmail became perfect. Mail Fetcher allows users to access non-Gmail email accounts from within the Gmail interface. If you have a Yahoo email account, and a work email account, etc., you can simply access that email from within Gmail, using POP settings. Gmail will now work in a very similar way as Outlook does on the PC desktop. This is confirmed on Google’s website.

I’ve been using Kayak.com to find cheap airfares, but the other day Liam asked me what’s a good site, I recall reading an article about Farecast which predicts Airfare prices. I personally haven’t used it, but I’ve heard good stuff about it, where it can usually predict quite well when the cheapest time to get airplane tickets is.

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us (from Digg) – Web 2.0 in just under 5 minutes. A very interesting video with a catchy tune, using browsing and text to show the evolution of text and the web. A higher quality version is available for download here. Please note that this is the second draft and the final version will not be available until late February after I review all comments and revise the video. Please return for a new download link at that time.

He Said, She Said (from FuzzyWuzzy) – WINNER “Best Music Video” in the YouTube Underground contest! buy our debut EP “Malfunction” here: http://store.imusicast.com The story of a loafer who sits around and watches TV all day and a girlfriend who threatens to leave him if he doesn’t get off his ass and do something, is told via animated comic book. Inspired by the “Take On Me” video from the 80’s (back when MTV still showed videos), this video combines live action and animation to tell it’s tale. The video was written, directed, and animated by the band itself. Made on a ZERO dollar budget in an apartment in Oakland, Ca.

charleston style (from RayAlome) – the charleston to daft punk. thanks for the support, you may return to your dancing. A pretty good sync of this video: Charleston Demo — Al Minns & Leon James to what appears to be daft punk/techno music.

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Cyanide and Happiness

I’ve been reading a new comic strip called Cyanide and Happiness. Rather funny, but humor’s a bit crude. Not sure if you’ll all like. Here’s a select few that I found:

Random Crap:

Wow, it’s been awhile since my last post. Been really busy at work with Beta 1 sign off and Deep Dive and have been pulling 10-14hr days. It’s finally over and I think things will return back to normal. I didn’t even get to watch 24 (2 episode special) till today. I’ve had to actually get to work before 10 for a few days, meaning I have to wake up at 9. I couldn’t believe how hard that was. I guess going to sleep at 4am didn’t help.

I’ve also been playing Ys: The Oath in Felghana (GameSpot), another thing that’s been keeping me away from blogging and keeping me up till 4am. I’ll be talking more about this in a later thread.

Finally, all my computer parts have arrived and I’ve built my HTPC. Unfortunately the copy of Vista I got was the incorrect version and somehow ended up with Enterprise instead of Ultimate. Will report to you about my HTPC later too with pictures! Too bad my HTPC doesn’t have a TV to broadcast on yet. Derek’s been making fun of me and saying I should’ve driven to Silverdale (1.5hrs each way = 3hrs of driving total). Maybe I’ll just show him and get a better, bigger, and cheaper TV. ;p

The youngest mother ever (from Digg) – The youngest mother was a 5 year old Peruvian girl. … Her name was Lina Medina, a Peruvian girl from the Andean village of Ticrapo… Lina’s parents initially thought their daughter had a large abdominal tumor… but Lina was eventually transferred to a hospital in Lima, where she delivered a six-pound baby boy by Cesarean section on 14 May 1939. Lina’s father was temporarily jailed on suspicion of incest, but he was released for a lack of evidence and authorities were never ableto determine who fathered Lina’s child. Even Snopes.com says it’s true. The question everyone’s asking is, if it’s not the father, who’s the child’s father?

Gela Skins (from Digg) – GelaSkins are made using premium grade vinyl with advanced adhesive technology by 3M and photo quality graphics by artists from around the world. These skins look rather cool and according to the Gearlog, they can be purchased at GelaSkins.

Vasectomy: $400. Speechless look on her face: priceless. (from Digg) – A hilarious story about how someone pwned his girlfriend when she claimed she was pregnant with his child.

Paradoxical Undressing (from Digg) – Victims of even slight hypothermia often exhibit altered states of judgment, which is known in mountaineering circles as being “cold stupid”. One common but especially bizarre behavior of hypothermia victims is a conundrum known as “paradoxical undressing”. … Paradoxical undressers remove their warm clothing even as they are freezing to death. An interesting read.

A few interesting films (from MS newsgroup):

  • Karma – We all make mistakes but do we always take responsibility for our actions? Karma has unique ways of catching up especially when we know what we are doing is wrong. The film was shot with a Panasonic HVX in two days with a crew of three (director, DP and one person to help out with lights/sound). Shot in Seattle in October whenever it stopped raining.
  • 9 Seconds – Tucker Gray has the power to “rewind” time nine seconds. He finds this ability amusing, until the day comes when nine seconds forever changes his world.

Guide to Secret “Off The Menu” Items/ Call for Entries – Jamba Juice has an entire secret smoothie menu. We remember that it used to be on Wikipedia, but has mysteriously vanished. All the smoothies are made from stuff in the store, but most aren’t as healthy as the ones the promote. They are, however, in the register. Some secret ones to try: Strawberry Shortcake, White Gummy Bear, PB+J, Pink Starburst, Skittles, Red Gummy Bear, Sourpatch Kid, Now and Later, Push Pop, Fruity Pebbles. The consensus seems to be that “White Gummy Bear” is the most delicious substance known to man. I’ve gotta try that White Gummy Bear next time.

Enable Netflix Video-On-Demand – If you’re not one of the lucky people who has Netflix video-on-demand pushed to their account, you can click here to enable it.

Fla. teen hiccuping for over 3 weeks – Jennifer Mee can’t stop hiccuping. For more than three weeks now, the 15-year-old St. Petersburg teen has hiccuped close to 50 times a minute — despite the best efforts of doctors and home remedies.

Mother cat adopts pup rejected by mother – – Who says cats and dogs don’t get along? Workers at the Meriden Humane Society are marveling at a short-haired mother cat who has willingly adopted a six-day-old Rottweiler puppy that was rejected by its mother. Story wasn’t that interesting. The puppies were so cute though:

puppies adopted by cat

Chinese workers paint mountain green – Workers who began spraying Laoshou mountain last August told villagers they were doing so on orders of the county government but were not told why, media reports said Wednesday. Some villagers guessed officials of the surrounding Fumin county, whose office building faces the mountain, were trying to change the area’s feng shui — the ancient Chinese belief of harmonizing one’s physical environment for maximum health and financial benefit.

The man who fell 12,000 ft … and survived (from Digg) – It’s the most gut-wrenching, mesmerising and shocking clip of video footage imaginable. Shot from the tiny camera in the helmet of champion skydiver Michael Holmes, it records with chilling clarity what happened when he plummeted 12,000ft to earth. This article’s been posted everywhere, but The Mail apparently has exclusive rights to the video forcing all other news outlets to remove the video and even the YouTube uploads to remove it. You can watch the video at World exclusive skydiver video… watch the incredible footage here!

Got milk? Got beer! – Great news for beer and milk lovers: A liquor shop owner in Japan’s largest dairy farming region has stopped crying about local spilled milk and started making beer from it instead. Hmmm…

Top 5 ways to hustle free drinks (from The Consumerist) – The main theme of all these hustles is something called a Propostion Bet. Basically, a proposition bet is a challenge which looks like it only has one outcome…and it does…it always favors the person placing the wager. That’s because you know something the other folks don’t. You know the ‘challenge’ is always going to go your way. Always. A show in Britain called “The Real Hustle’ does these bets often as a way to show you how much fun they can be, and also how to avoid getting caught out by them. So, here we go. My Top 5 free drink hustles, in no particular order. Watch the videos, they’re rather interesting. So if you get hustled into buying others alcohol a lot, you should remember these tricks.

The Original Hamster Dance ?!? (from RayAlome) – I was watching some of my old Disney Cartoons when I recognized this one tune at the beginning that the rooster is whistling. then I realized, “Whoa, it’s the hamster dance”. this is a video I threw together bored on a Wednesday night. The clips are from the Disney Cartoon “Robin Hood” and the song is “The Hamster Dance”

The Most Amazing Waterfall In The World (from Digg) – The power of nature is truly magnificent! Enjoy this stunning video footage of one of the largest waterfall in the world. The waterfall Iguassu forms a natural border for Argentina and Brazil, and consists of about 275 waterfalls, sure beats the hell out of a fence…. I will have to agree that the pictures of this waterfall are AMAZING!

Zoo tours cash in on hot monkey love – Genevieve Chandler has been visiting the Lowry Park Zoo since she was a kid, but the tour she got the other night was definitely not the G-rated fare of her childhood. Among the things Chandler, 30, and her date learned on their “Wild at Heart” zoo tour: Male pigs have a unique corkscrew endowment and impressive, um, output; manatees have orgies and don’t really care if their partners are male or female; and a male porcupine has only one four-hour window a year to mate — very carefully, of course.

Britons ignorant about sex, survey reveals – Nearly one in three Britons think that if a woman jumps up and down, washes or urinates immediately after sex, she can prevent pregnancy, a survey revealed Monday. Haha!

I was reading this strip from Real Life Comics when I realize what the guy is saying is true: Have you ever noticed how “keeping it away from someone else” seems to be a common thread in cereal commercials? With Trix, they’re trying to keep it away from the rabbit, Fred’s always trying to keep Barney from eating his Fruity Pebbles. Hell – that leprechaun actively tries to keep kids from eating his lucky charms! Besides that, there’s the police trying to keep the robber and his dog from getting their hands (and paws) on Cookie Crisp. It’s just an interesting idea which I never noticed.

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AllFreeCalls lives on!

AT&T’s ‘Free Call’ Bill: $2 Million (from The Consumerist) –

Guess who got stuck with a big bill for all those “free” international calls touted by outfits like FuturePhone? None other than AT&T, which has filed a lawsuit in Iowa claiming that “deceitful and unlawful schemes” like FuturePhone’s caused a jump from $2,000 per month to $2 million per month in the fees billed AT&T by an Iowa rural telco.

…

Boiled down, AT&T’s main argument is that because the calls are not actually “terminated” in Iowa — AT&T says Iowa is just a midpoint in what is really an international call — AT&T shouldn’t have to pay the LECs the termination fees. Telco legal sources we talked to said that while the suit’s merit can certainly be contested, what it does immediately is give AT&T a legal reason to stall payments of such monthly bills, which could effectively strong-arm the startups out of business.

Ouch! $2 million. Better start making those long distance calls through AllFreeCalls.net before they get slaughtered like FuturePhone by AT&T. Initially I had assumed that AllFreeCalls.net will have the same fate as FuturePhone, but it’s apparently not so, leaving AllFreeCalls.net to probably be the only option left to make free long distance calls.

[UPDATE] Pat Phelan (owner of AllFreeCalls.net) left a comment in my previous blog entry. He says:

We are expanding rather than closing
www.allfreecalls.ie launched today bringing the same good deals to the Irish consumer

I’m curious then if Pat and AllFreeCalls was listed in AT&T’s lawsuit. If so, does that mean you guys will be fighting against AT&T to hold their end of the bargain?

Random Crap:

For women, nothing’s like the smell of men’s sweat – Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley said women who sniffed a chemical found in male sweat experienced elevated levels of an important hormone, along with higher sexual arousal, faster heart rate and other effects.

Japan subway ad (from Digg) – Here are our top 10 choises of advertisement in Tokyo’s trains or stations. Some interesting ad ideas like product sculptures and escalator hand rail ads, but the one that’s really cool are the tunnel movies: corvette ad inside the tunnel and Japan subway ad

Guy buys a commercial during Veronica Mars to propose to his girlfriend (from Deadlock) – On February 6th, at 9:23PM, Rand – Also known as ‘JP’ of MySuperProposal.com Proposed to his girlfriend, Geraldine, during her favorite show, Veronica Mars… I thought it was rather sweet and the Geraldine’s expression was unfathomable. Though her repeating screams of “What” and saying, “I think I’m going to puke.” did sort of ruined the moment, for me at least.

Man finds fingertip in chocolate bar in Germany – A man in Germany was put off his Italian chocolate treat when he noticed that a bump in the bar was not a nut but part of a human finger. … “I suppose it went unnoticed because there were nuts in the chocolate and it was hard to tell the difference,” the police spokesman said, adding the fingertip was being examined by forensic experts. *shivers*

Gadget toilet made for modern kings and queens – Ohio-based Roto-Rooter says its “Pimped Out John” is designed to “fulfil all your wildest bathroom dreams”. Special features include an iPod music player and speakers, an Xbox video game console, a refrigerator filled with drinks and snacks and a cycling exercise machine. … Any resident of the United States could win this “gleaming monument to personal convenience” by entering the sweepstake at www.rotorooter.com before April 2.

roto-rooter pimped out john

Sex vs clothes: women come out of the closet. – Women on average say they would be willing to give up sex for 15 months for a closet full of new apparel, with 2 percent ready to abstain from sex for three years in exchange for new duds, according to a new survey of about 1,000 women in 10 U.S. cities. Sixty-one percent of women polled said it would be worse to lose their favorite article of clothing than give up sex for a month.

Zen And The Art Of ToughBooks (from Digg) – If you’re a regular reader of the TrustedReviews notebook section, you will have seen coverage of Panasonic’s ToughBook range. The ToughBooks differ from most other notebooks by being, well, tough. Panasonic has built a reputation for itself by creating notebooks that can function in the most inhospitable environments. Thinkpads are rather tough themselves. I was informed by a intern who worked at Intel over the summer who’s job was to record results from dropping laptops X feet from the ground and see if the CPU survived, and he told me that IBM Thinkpads were better than the ToughBooks. Then again, they were only checking the CPU and not any of the other hardware.

Woman on the wrong bus lost for 25 years (from Digg) – A rather sad story of a woman who boards the wrong bus, followed by another wrong bus and ends up in the middle of somewhere where she neither spoke nor understood the local language. Without money, she ended up begging on the streets for 5. She was was arrested in 1987 for being an illegal immigrant, but sent to work at a hostel when no communication could work. Finally, last month, a group of students that spoke her language came and helped her get home.

Little Gamers – That last room – What’s the last room for? Computer room. Ah, the mastrubatorium.

Dynamite Surfing (from Derek) – This is by far one of the coolest videos I’ve come across in a long time. These guys in Copenhagen surf a wave created by a huge stick of dynamite thrown into the water. Absolutely amazing, that took a lot of nerve to pull off.

Awesome Stop Motion Paper Fight – This guy has created an awesome stop motion paper fight movie. I cant imagine how many hours this took but in the end I think it was well worth it.

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Free Prizes for Playing the Xbox 360

Got an Xbox 360 and well, play games? According to Xbox Rewards: Take Your Gaming to the Next Level (from MS newsgroup), they’ll be awarding players based on how many GP gamer points they currently have. If you look at my side bar, I currently have 945. Pretty weak, I know, but I’m not really much of a gamer. The prizes will be distributed as follow:

  • Level 1 (0 – 4,999 annual Gamerscore): You are developing your skills and gaining experience. Take some time to get used to the program and learn your way around. The Challenges will typically be easier and the rewards smaller. Prizes include: The popular Xbox Live Arcade game Contra (rated: E10+) from Konami (Retail Value $5.00). Exclusive Old Spice Level 1 Xbox Rewards gamer picture. An experience upgrade to Xbox Rewards Level 2.
  • Level 2 (5,000 – 9,999 annual Gamerscore): We are going to turn up the heat a bit. You have proved that you know how to play and are willing to put in the gaming time to reap the benefits. The Challenges will get a bit more difficult. Never fear, the reward value goes up as well. Prizes include: The popular Xbox Live Arcade game Contra (rated: E10+) from Konami Exclusive Old Spice Level 2 Xbox Rewards gamer picture. 100 Microsoft Points. An experience upgrade to Xbox Rewards Level 3.
  • Level 3 (over 10,000 annual Gamerscore): This is an arena filled with the who’s who of gaming. We don’t want to claim that Level 3 is an exclusive club, but if you find yourself winning Challenges here, you’ve obviously pulled out the big guns, so enjoy while it lasts. Prizes include: The popular Xbox Live Arcade game Contra (rated: E10+) from Konami Exclusive Old Spice Level 3 Xbox Rewards gamer picture. 200 Microsoft Points. Old Spice T-Shirt (Estimated Retail Value $10.00). A copy of Fuzion Frenzy 2 game (rated: E10+) (Estimated Retail Value $50.00).

Unfortunately I doubt I’ll be able to reach 5k given that amount of time, but this program is rather neat. The registration begins on February 12th at www.xbox.com/rewards. Enjoy!

Random Crap:

if peter griffin had a real daughter
If Peter Griffin had a real daughter (from ApeChild)

12 second Cure for Hiccups (from Digg) – an interesting idea where you hold your breath while stretching and bending your abdomen. Personally the holding breath trick usually works. If not, I pretend to take gulps of air down my air pipe (simulating drinking gulps of water without breathing).

People have been asking me what the difference between XP and Vista is and I really can’t give much of a good answer. There’s better security, nicer UI, tons of revamped applications, etc. Others also have been asking me what the difference between the versions (Ultimate, Home, Business, etc) were. I found this site: Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate – Comparison. They do a pretty good comparison between the versions, showing you what each version has and what each version is missing.

I was watching this magic trick: Jeremy Wai – Shadow Card Magic and the after clicking on a few more videos, I ended up here: Easy Float and the music was captivating. It sounded very much like ERA, but if it was ERA then I should’ve heard of it before. Apparently not. The song was indeed ERA and it’s called Ameno (Remix) on their 1st album.

How the “Pavement Picasso” Does It (from MS newsgroup) – A time lapse video of Julian Beever creating the Aveeno Fountain of Youth chalk drawing in Union Square, NYC on 01/15/07. See a full gallery of Julian’s work at pavementpicasso’s photos. They also posted this video: Julian Beever ( The Amazing Art of Julian Beever ) – Take a look at The Amazing Art of Julian Beever. It is hard to believe what you are seeing. This video meets VPG standards. You’ve probably seen all those 3D pavement drawings or sometimes referred to as Virtual Street Reality. The 1st video shows you how one actually does it.

tesla coil - eye of sauron
The Eye of Sauron – Tesla Coils (from Tesla Downunder)

Transcript: U.S. ‘friendly fire’ video (from Derek) – The Sun newspaper in Britain has released what it says is a cockpit video from a U.S. fighter jet being used in the investigation of a “friendly-fire” incident in which a British soldier was killed. You can watch the videos here:The “friendly-fire” death of a British soldier in Iraq. (p1) and The “friendly-fire” death of a British soldier in Iraq. (p2). I was shocked with today’s technology that we’re still unable to correctly identified friendly units. There was a phrase in the transcript I wasn’t familiar with: Hey, POPOV34, abort your mission. You got a, looks we might have a blue on blue situation. According to Wikipedia: The U.S. and British military refer to these incidents as blue on blue,[2] which derives from military exercises where friendly forces are “blue” and enemy forces are “red”.

Windows Vista’s SuperFetch and ReadyBoost Analyzed (from B$) – Vista comes with two mechanisms that effectively reduce the time required to launch popular applications: SuperFetch analyzes your behavior and proactively puts applications into available main memory, so they can be launched quicker. Of course this requires as much main memory as possible, which is where the second feature engages: ReadyBoost allows expanding the main memory size by plugging in a USB 2.0 Flash drive. Although the data transfer performance of USB 2.0 devices cannot compete with modern hard drives, access times for Flash memory are literally nonexistent, making these devices a nice and particularly cheap choice. Derek’s been using ReadyBoost and has nothing but praise for it, but for the price of 1 stick of flash memory (free after rebate), I’d be definite to try out these features.

My name got posted in The Consumerist: House Burglar’s Advice For Hiding Money. 😉

All about your child’s allowance (from The Consumerist) – a very good guide on when to start teaching your kids about money and how to train them.

As soon as your child begins to express a sincere interest in material wants (as in, “I want that!”), it’s time for an allowance. Depending upon the child, that’s probably around the ages of 3 to 5.

The first mistake most parents make is starting too late. The majority of parents wait until their children are tweens (9 to 12 years old) and they miss out on the opportunity to discuss money with young children who are more apt to listen to, and take, their parent’s advice. By the time kids are teenagers, they have additional influences on their spending habits, including friends, advertisements, pop culture and the media.

Woman uses daughter’s key to ‘steal’ car – A college student who reported that his car was stolen got a surprise when he learned a woman had mistaken it for her daughter’s car and taken it- using her key. … Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong said key technology wasn’t as sophisticated two decades ago, and there were only so many ways to cut a key, making it possible for such a mix-up to occur. He said the company now has a microchip embedded in the keys for 90 percent of its vehicles that allows them to start only with the correct key.

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Digg

Digg just released a easy script to integrate Digg on any website: Integrate: “Digg This” Button. Before you had to submit your story and then get the Digg button link, but now, the submit story and the Digg link are both the same. Unfortunately, most of my stories have not been submitted so they’re all stuck at a big fat zero. My best Digg story so far is How to download HD Trailers from Apple.com at 3, though through someone else’s Digg, I’ve been getting a lot of traffic to that entry.

They have 2 main skins: default and compact. The default skin looks like the normal Digg style with a big number and the word Digg underneath it. With compact (what I’m using), it’s a lot smaller, takes up less room, and fits inline with standard text.

You also have the option of setting a different URL than the current one. This is for pages with multiple blog entries (like my main page) and I don’t want to be Digging Krunk4ever.com, but the specific entry itself. I guess this can be abused, but I don’t really see it as that big of a problem.

There are options you can set like background color, default title, default summary, etc.

I didn’t really take much time to decide where to put it, so I’ve just randomly selected it to be under the Title right now. If you have a better suggestion of where the Digg block should be, please let me know. I’ve only added Digg code to my main index page and the individual entry’s page. Since the archive and search results only show a small chunk of the entry, I didn’t think putting Digg code there made much sense.

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Craigslist

So to make room for my new HDTV, I’m trying to get rid of my old television that I brought from home. Personally I wouldn’t have taken it, but my dad forced me to take a TV so I chose the worse one. I knew if I was going to get a TV, I wouldn’t have any of the ones from home anyway. He also forced me to take a bunch of other furniture and stuff, many which I didn’t really care for and hardly ever use, but he said I should take advantage of the moving company since it was already paid for. If I knew about the $5,000 compensation instead of them paying for my move, I would’ve taken it, but alas, that can’t be changed anymore.

Anyway, who really wants an old TV, that’s already beginning to have problems and really one input (antenna/cable tv). I don’t even know the dimensions, but measuring it came out to 28″. I decided to post it on Craigslist on Saturday night and listed under the free section. Initially I listed it under electronics, but found out there was a FREE section and thought that would be a better place to put it. There were quite some interesting stuff listed there. My listing goes:

This is a really ancient TV I’ve had for a long time. The TV is a Emerson Color TV (Model #TS2581RD). I do not know the exact dimensions, but the diagonal measures to 28″ with my tape measure.

There is only 1 input: Cable TV/Antenna. It works fine with Comcast Cable TV.

Remote control is included.

Once in awhile, the image disappears leaving only a bright white line. In this case, a few taps on the TV will the get the image back.

You’ll have to come pick this item yourself. I live in the Lakemont area in Bellevue, WA.

Please email me if you’re interested or if you have questions.

emerson TS2581RD tvemerson TS2581RD tvemerson TS2581RD tvemerson TS2581RD tv

Within a few hours, I got a email saying she was interested in picking it up. Over the next few days, I’ve gotten 2 more people asking if it was available. She’s scheduled to come by some afternoon to pick it up and then I won’t have any care about it anymore. The hardest part so far was carrying this 28″ down to my garage. I didn’t expect it to be this heavy, or maybe I’m just weak. Those flights of stairs weren’t easy. We had scheduled the pickup to be this afternoon around 1:30pm, but seeing that she didn’t appear by 2, I decided to leave the TV outside my garage wrapped in a garbage bag (in case it rained) and a post-it saying: FOR <NAME>. I shot her an email saying I wasn’t able to wait any longer and she could come by and picked the TV up herself. I got a reply later today with her apologizing for being late and said she was new to the Seattle area. Got home today and the TV’s no longer there. YAY!

I also got word that my Vizio GV47LF – 47″ LCD HDTV 1080p is back in stock. Well, I actually had to call them. They had claimed that they would be calling those who had rain checks, but I never received the call. They told me that these were “hidden” in the back and I would to go to one of the supervisors on the floor and request to purchase it. Whirlpool also called and scheduled an appointment to delivery my new dryer. I’ll probably be upgrading to the executive Costco membership to get that extra % back and with this purchases I’ll be making, it’s going to be worth it. Plus according to people, if you don’t make the difference in the cash back amount, they’ll refund you that amount making it basically a free upgrade.

Interestingly enough, Advanta left me a voicemail today asking me to call them back in regards to some recent purchases that I may or may not have made. I’ve been purchasing parts here and there and I’ve made 3 separate purchases from Newegg already as I found something I wanted and since there was free shipping, there was no point in trying to accumulate items to save on shipping. They went through my list of recent purchases (Costco, Newegg, Frys, and a couple others that slip my mind right now) and I said yah, those were all mine. They apologized for the inconvenience, but I told them I was happy that they were keeping an eye on suspicious activity because this wasn’t my normal purchasing behavior (or at least I hope not).

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Little People

These cute photos were emailed to me by ChewyDenise. I don’t know the real origin, but I think it has to do with some pastry store or something that creates desserts, sweets, and other yummy stuff.

little people playing soccer on top of a carton of eggs as a fieldlittle people sun bathing on top of mashed potato and gravylittle people playing in snow made of whipped cream. a father drags a kid along in his sleighlittle people painting mushrooms red with white polka dotslittle people trying to push sugar into cup of coffee and creates a mess for janitor to clean uplittle people as construction workers attempting to pick seeds out of watermelonlittle people wearing hazmat suits trying to find radioactive material on top of a creme bruleelittle people walking along the beach made of ice creamlittle people mowing the hair off kiwislittle people cleaning up mess after a big chunk breaks off of pastrylittle people climbing up pastry with powdered sugarlittle people as construction workers investigate crack in donutlittle people working in a chocolate minelittle people biking around a round pastry

Random Crap:

Get a Mac – Security (from Digg) – I can’t help but laugh, because it’s so…

7 Deadly Sins and Their Combinations (from Digg) – someone came up with a diagram of what if you mixed 2 sins together, what do you get. A pretty funny set of examples, like with Lust and Gluttony, you get edible underwear. With Gluttony and Pride, you get fat men in Speedos.

The Best Place To Hide Money: Conversation With A Burglar (from Digg) –

I had quite the interesting conversation this weekend with a person who happened to be a former burglar. It was great timing because I was wondering if something like the skid mark underwear for hiding money would really work. I also figured that if you wanted to know the best place to hide your money from a burglar, a former burglar was the person to ask.

…

Your best strategy, then, is to actually leave some money in obvious places for the burglar to quickly find (the same applies if you keep all your money in the bank). This can not only save your other stash of money, but may actually keep the burglar from destroying your place as he looks for where you have hidden your money. If they believe they may have found the cash that you have in the house, they are much less likely to keep looking (remember, they want to get out asap). In the end, if you hide all your money well, you may win a moral victory in not letting the burglar find the money, but you’ll likely have much more damage done to your place that will end up costing you more in the long run.

…

So the question of where is the best places to hide money still hadn’t been answered?

His number one recommendation for money was in toys in a young child’s room. As he explained, young children don’t have money, they have an abundance of toys and most parents don’t trust a child around money. Therefore, parents will rarely hide money there. In addition, when money is hidden, it is usually hidden away neatly and securely — a child’s room is rarely a neat place making it an unlikely place for money to be hidden. Plus with all the stuff in a child’s room, it is not someplace that a burglar can search quickly and get out (rule #2).

The Folding Chair (from Angelus) – a pretty neat project where this chair is like an accordion or slinky and you and bend and twist this chair into a couch of many different shapes and forms. I wished they would have showed more people sitting on it in its extended form to see the strength of it. There were a few people who sat and there was a guy who tried pushing it down to see if it’ll bend. I was surprised it actually held up. I’m not sure where this is, but they were speaking traditional mandarin (not a local dialect), so I can only imagine it being a major city in China or maybe Taiwan.

Gambler gives birth on N.J. casino floor – A woman playing the penny slots Saturday morning left the Resorts Atlantic City casino with her own little jackpot — a new baby boy. Eight-months pregnant Nyree Thompson, 32, went into labor on the casino floor about 9:30 a.m. I can’t stop and wonder if the casino environment is really a good place for a pregnant woman to be. I’m hoping she at least was in the non-smoking area.

Mexican seeks world chili-eating record – For most people, even the smallest bite of a raw chili pepper means a flushed face and a rush for a gulp of water. But Manuel Quiroz can guzzle down dozens of Mexico’s spiciest chilies, rub them on his skin and even squeeze their juice into his eyes without so much as blinking.

Oklahoma school auctions tuition on eBay – The university on Saturday kicked off an eBay auction of a year of tuition, room and board at the private college. The bidding had reached $4,425 by 11 p.m. Bidders can buy the tuition for themselves or someone else. Among the bidders will be current students at the school, which has an enrollment of about 1,030 students. Is there really a point to this? I mean if I was a current student there and already will be paying for room and board, why wouldn’t I just bid my tuition minus a little?

Cool art that will mess with your head (from Digg) – a nice set of optical illusions.

Laurie McGuinness – Mac PC Spoofs (from Digg) – nice parodies for the Get a Mac ads.

I don’t usually care much about Mac and Vista comparisons, but this guy compares the Lenovo Thinkpad (formerly IBM) vs the MacBook Pro:

If the MacBook Pro is a 911 Carrera, then the ThinkPad is a BMW 7 Series that any executive would want to be seen in.

Honestly, to me, there is no comparison. I also didn’t think it was fair to compare the 15″ MacBook Pro against the X60 which is a 12″ laptop known for super portability and reliability, which the 15″ MacBook Pro or even the 12″ MacBook Pro is not known for. You can tell I’m a bit biased for Thinkpads.

HDClips.net (from Digg) – a place where a bunch of HD (high definition) clips are posted so you can test out your new HDTV.

A Wink and a Smile (from Digg) – Men and women often misunderstand each other’s flirtation signals. … “One of the surprising facts in this study was that women do not send clear rejection signals,” write the study’s authors, led by Karl Grammer, Ph.D. “A woman sends sexually explicit signals without having much interest in the man.” This behavior may encourage men to reveal more about themselves, the authors suggest, allowing women to verify their initial impressions. What’s more, women used subtle signals such as nodding to direct the flow of conversation, and they avoided contact with men only if the men talked too much initially.

Taiwan anthem played for China officials – diplomatic gaffe marred Saturday’s inauguration of a China-financed stadium on this Caribbean island when a band performed the national anthem of Chinese rival Taiwan. Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan and scores of blue-uniformed Chinese laborers who built the $40 million Queen’s Park stadium as a gift were visibly uncomfortable as Taiwan’s anthem echoed inside the 20,000-seat venue. Haha! I can’t help but laugh given China and Taiwan’s history.

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The Motel

A very touching and close to heart movie about a young Chinese boy growing up in an Asian family. In the morning he goes to school. When he comes home, he helps out with the family business, which is a motel. Just hitting puberty, this boy is beginning to enter a whole new world.

Official Site
IMDb: 6.7/10 (224 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: n/a / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 86% / Average Rating: 7/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
MY RATING: 7/10

the motel poster

Spoilers: (Show)

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Burger King Xbox 360 games for only 99¢ each

Burger King games just $0.99 (from Digg) – I was going through the Burger King at Redstone Arsenal yesterday and noticed that the BK games were just $0.99 with a combo meal. So, I finished out my collection and bought Sneak King for a buck. Supplies are limited. The BK Gamer website still lists the games as $3.99 each, but there’s been several confirmations. Not sure if this is nationwide, but if you’re visiting a Burger King and see they’re on sale for a buck, please let us know.

Even though I purchased 2 for $3.99 each, they were definitely worth the money. I can’t say that’s the case for their food. But it did get me to go into Burger King twice when the promo started. It must definitely helped them: Burger King Earnings Rise 40% Helped By Xbox Promotion. I wonder if this price decrease is to get more people to come in.

I’ve posted my reviews on the 2 games I got:
Burger King releases Xbox 360 games
Pocketbike Racer

Random Crap:

Coach fired for ‘check manhood’ comment – A high school coach who told his players at halftime to reach into their pants to “check their manhood” before returning to the basketball court was fired.

Joey Chestnut downs a record 182 wings – Professional competitive eater Joey Chestnut devoured a record 182 chicken wings Friday to win his second consecutive Wing Bowl, a gut-busting annual event that draws thousands of revelers to the city’s sports complex in the pre-dawn hours. His face just wants to make me want to throw up. “I love to eat,” said Chestnut, 23, of San Jose, Calif. “Today I was swallowing wings, swallowing bones, whatever it took.“ Apparently he swallowed the wing whole (including bones) – from SueOn.

Getting fabulous hair takes a bit of bull … semen – An upmarket London beauty salon says it can give your hair the ultimate shine by treating it with a mixture that includes semen from thoroughbred bulls.

Windows that become mirrors at the flip of a switch (from digg) –

A fancy new glass has been developed in Japan, one that promises to cut down on the energy usage of buildings everywhere. It looks like a normal window regularly, but at the flip of a switch it turn to a mirror. How does this affect energy costs, you ask? Walk with me.

When used as exterior windows, the mirrors can deflect the sun on hot days. This keeps the interior cool, cutting down on AC costs. When the temperature drops, you can turn the windows back into regular windows, letting the warm sun filter on through and lowering heating costs. It’s win/win, really. Plus it would be really cool to see someone flip the switch and an entire skyscraper suddenly don a mirrored shell. Heck, if it isn’t too outrageously expensive I don’t see why this couldn’t catch on in residential building as well. Time will tell.

A triple-venti-Americano-decaf surprise? (The Consumerist) – Consumer Reports finds McDonald’s coffee better than Starbucks. The magazine reported that McDonald’s was “decent and moderately strong. Although it lacked the subtle top notes needed to make it rise and shine, it had no flaws.” As for Starbucks, the magazine called it “strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open.”

KC Police Seek Answers in Case of Arrested Woman Who Miscarried (from Digg) – For now, Sofia Salva will let her attorney and the videotape of two police officers ignoring her pleas for medical help speak for her. Salva, who said she was three months pregnant and bleeding when Kansas City police stopped her for traffic violations last February, believes she wouldn’t have had a miscarriage had officers aided her. A police videotape released Tuesday brought attention to the incident. Salva also has filed a wrongful death and personal injuries lawsuit against the Kansas City Police Department and two officers who arrested her. “It’s tragic, it’s disappointing, it’s frustrating, it’s sickening at times,” Salva’s attorney, Andrew Protzman, said Wednesday. “This is a lady who was in severe medical distress and clearly needed emergency medical attention and medical treatment.” Like the attorney says, it’s a tragedy.

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study (from Digg) – Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today. Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Sigh…

Sleepwalking woman had sex with strangers – Sleep medicine experts have successfully treated a rare case of a woman having sex with strangers while sleepwalking. … Circumstantial evidence, such as condoms found scattered around the house, alerted the couple to the problem. On one occasion, her partner awoke to find her missing, went searching for her and found her engaged in the sex act.

Blondie Unlocks Car (from Crooked Brains) – An unique way for women to recover keys they forgot in a locked car. Is this real? Can you really use a tennis ball to do this? If you can, I’d imagine any sort of air pump would also work. Maybe it’s just certain cars?

Conan O’Brien Defeats Serena Williams in Wii Sports Tennis (from Digg) – Conan O’Brien, popular late night host on NBC, defeated Serena Williams in a Wii Sports Tennis match on his show Thursday night, questioning the authenticity of the recently completed Australian Open. Well, not really but it was entertaining to watch.

Happy end to iguana penis saga (from Digg) – Mozart, the iguana whose penis was surgically removed after he got a permanent erection, is back with his girlfriends and enjoying a healthy sex life again. As the title of the Digg entry proclaims: THE BACKUP WORKS!

Woman with bionic arm regains sense of touch (from Digg) – A woman fitted with the world’s first “bionic arm” controlled by thought alone has been given back a sense of feeling. Claudia Mitchell, 26, a former US marine, regained the ability to carry out simple tasks such as cutting up food when she was fitted with the prosthetic arm last year. Now doctors have re-routed the ends of arm nerves to a patch of skin on her chest — allowing her to regain the sensation of having her lost hand touched. Awesome! Cyborgs here we come!

Orange Snow in Omsk, Russia (from Digg) – Yesterday a strange phenomena happened in Omsk region Russia. Pretty vast territory of Omsk region was covered with a snow that had an unusual color. It was orange. Now we have a few photos, mainly screenshots from Russian TV channels. There is still no one exact explanation about the origin of orange color of this snow.

Russian Puzzle (from Digg) – The challenge is to fit the five pieces into the square. The pieces can touch, but they may not overlap. Use the mouse and click and drag to move the pieces. To rotate a piece, press the SHIFT button, and then click the mouse button. Pretty difficult puzzle. The key is in the rotation of the shapes (clicking while holding down the shift key). I finally gave up and took a look at the hint.