One Red Paperclip

I’ve talked about the One Red Paperclip guy in one of my previous posts. Apparently he’s successfully traded all the way to a house! And it only took 14 trades, although some are quite questionable.

From paper-clip to house, in 14 trades (from /.) – A 26-year-old Montreal man appears to have succeeded in his quest to barter a single, red paper-clip all the way up to a house. It took almost a year and 14 trades, but Kyle MacDonald has been offered a two-storey farmhouse in Kipling, Sask., for a paid role in a movie.

Wow! Just amazing!


Random Crap:

It’s been awhile since my last random crap post, huh?

I downloaded a movie trailer with the filename: tcm_thebegining_h720p.mov and thought it was a Turner Classic Movie called The Beginning, but it turns out TCM here actually stood for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which also has one of the few words that still keeps the British ‘re’ (i.e. centre) instead of ‘er’ (i.e. center).

911 loose change 2nd edition (from /.) – I downloaded this video awhile ago, but finally had a chance to watch it. Basically more conspiracy theories about the whole 9/11 event. I’m not saying to believe everything they say as I certainly don’t, but it’s interesting of what is revealed and not revealed. I skimmed through certain parts, but it is a long documentary (almost 1.5hrs)

Tongues are big business in the meat tradeEach year, U.S. beef, pork, and poultry companies export hundreds of millions of dollars worth of various meat items that most Americans never see on store shelves, but are considered a delicacy elsewhere. Foreign countries buy steaks, pork chops, and chicken too but it is the stomachs, tongues, kidneys, livers, and chicken feet that U.S. meat companies are particularly anxious to export because if sold domestically, those products would bring much lower prices. I certainly do miss eating much of this stuff back in LA.

Limo driver gets big tip: a kidneyHe gave me part of his body. He saved my life,” Faraj, a diabetes sufferer whose kidneys were failing despite a three-times-a-week dialysis regime, told area television stations.

Desktop Linux Defined: SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (from /.) – SUSE 10 looks so pretty. I think it’s time to upgrade.

Ultraviolet Secrets (from Ungsunghero) – no this doesn’t have to do with the movie, but our credit cards and driver’s license having UV logos on them is something I never knew about. I was just researching what the difference between UV light and blacklight is and found: What is the difference between a black light and a normal light bulb?

Fight erupts at shoe sale; customer shotWhen customers rebelled against orders to close the store because of overcrowding and started to fight with one another and with salespeople, a store employee shot his gun into the air, Anatolia said. The bullet struck the foot of a customer, who was taken to a hospital, while the shooter was taken into police custody, the agency reported. Sigh… it’s just a shoe sale. Then again, I bet over 80% of the female population would disagree with what I just said.

post its all over officenewspaper wrapped officekeyboard through desksprouts on keyboardsprouts on keyboardpacking peanuts filled cubiclealuminum foil wrapped cubicle
Photos from Things to do when your coworker goes on vacation (from ChewyDensise) – this actually might rival some of the stuff that happens on my floor.

Nude stand-in wants exposureA Chinese actress who played Hollywood movie star Zhang Ziyi’s naked body double in “The Banquet” wants her name in the movie’s credits, state media reported Friday. … Huayi’s deputy head, Xu Li, said Shao’s name wouldn’t appear in the movie’s credits due to contractual issues and decried the actress’s posting of the dispute on her blog. There wasn’t anything interesting about this article, but the fact that there was very little information of Shao Xiaoshan (邵小珊). After a bit of digging around, I found more info and actual pictures of this body double: 冯小刚《夜宴》中章子怡裸替明星邵小珊惊爆裸体内幕(音频/照片)

How to Avoid being Arrested by Cops (from /.) – a very educational video about what civil rights you have during an encounter with police officer(s). Definitely worth the 45min it takes to watch it.

So I was watching movie trailers awhile back and while I was watching the trailer for Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man, he said a phrase that reminded me of childhood book I read: He’d spend days on every line, so he spends a year looking at a song. The book it reminded me of was of course Sideways Stories from Wayside School. In one of the stories, there was a kid that drew really fast and would finish his painting in less than a minute. The teacher told him to slow down and started telling him how great artists like Van Gogh or Picasso tooks years to finish a masterpiece. The kid understood and as he left school that day, he talked to Louis (the ball guy/janitor/recess monitor) about drawing a cat. Louis said he can’t wait to see it tomorrow. The kid goes, “Ha! I don’t think I’d even be done with the whiskers by then.”

A Scanner Darkly

Went to see this movie with CDMCC and Elizabeth last night. We were planning to watch it on the east side, but apparently it’s only playing in one theater in all of Seattle. Guess it’s apparently playing in limited theaters across the country. There was a big line when we went last night.

Official Site
IMDb: 7.7/10 (374 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B- / Yahoo! Users: B+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 66% / Average Rating 6.4/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com Soundtrack
Amazon.com Showtimes
Amazon.com DVD

a scanner darkly postera scanner darkly postera scanner darkly postera scanner darkly postera scanner darkly poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Here’s some production screen captures from Yahoo.

Cinderella Man

Forgot why I decided to watch this movie. It’s actually been on queue for some time and I was watching something and it sparked me interested and I went ahead and watched it. I think I might’ve been watching that new Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher or maybe I was going through IMDb and somehow landed on Cinderella Man.

Official Site
IMDb: 8.1/10 (21,338 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B+ / Yahoo! Users: B+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 82% / Average Rating: 7.5/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack

cinderella man postercinderella man postercinderella man postercinderella man poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Our division had another morale event yesterday as we went to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. All in all, the movie was fun, but the storyline dragged on and ended with a big whopping TO BE CONTINUED. Though Keira Knightley is as hot as ever, so a must-watch if you’re a Keira fan.

Official Site
IMDb: 7.9/10 (1,412 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B- / Yahoo! Users: B+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating 52% / Average Rating: 6/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com Showtimes
Amazon.com Soundtrack
Amazon.com DVD

pirates of the caribbean - dead man's chest posterpirates of the caribbean - dead man's chest posterpirates of the caribbean - dead man's chest posterpirates of the caribbean - dead man's chest posterpirates of the caribbean - dead man's chest posterpirates of the caribbean - dead man's chest poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Here’s some pictures of the stars in the movie (lots of hot Keira Knightley pictures): moviefone, Rotten Tomatoes, Yahoo! Movies

Google Browser Sync – huh?

I think I might stop using Google Browser Sync after today’s lastest annoyance. So I’ve already told you how stupid it is that Google Browser Sync doesn’t prompt you for the password when you want to sync (especially for those who sync their passwords and entire identity). Then there’s the fact that it delays Firefox from opening while it connects to its server. Why can’t it do that in the background? Or it should also add the option of syncing when I want it to.

The latest annoyance, I’m getting scared. It’s been prompting with this message box before Firefox loads:

Google Browser Sync needs your Firefox Master Password in order to sync your passwords, please enter it below.

Why does it need to know my Firefox Master Password?!?!? I don’t even tell it to sync my passwords. I’ve double checked my settings on both my machines and neither have the password syncing option enabled. Unless someone’s hacked both my GMail account and my Google Browser Sync password, I find it weird that it should suddenly ask me for my master password…

Maybe I shouldn’t be trusting Google so much… Then again, many people have all their emails on their servers which is even scarier.

Now I have one thing more to dislike about it. There’s no way to turn off the sync tool without uninstalling the extension. I can stop the syncing (basically log off the sync tool), but everytime I load Firefox, it prompts me to log into my GMail account, which is worst than delaying the startup of Firefox while it connects to its servers.

Ah… I found out how to disable Firefox extensions w/o uninstalling them. Apparently if you right click on the extension, you can disable it instead of uninstalling it. I knew Firefox would have something like that.

Happy Birthday Decathanerd!

Just wanted to say Happy Birthday to Decathanerd.

Apparently, when SFHalcyon showed up to our camping trip on 7/2, it was his birthday. Liam, ChewyDenise, Jeani, and Karl went out and got him a little cake at the local store and we sang happy birthday to him.

Sigh… we’re all getting old.

July 4th Camping Trip

So I took 2 days off and had a 5 day weekend. CDMCC and I drove down to Mt. Shasta. The drive wasn’t too bad. It took ~8hrs, though being the driver, it felt a LOT shorter than driving from Berkeley to Monterey Park, which usually takes about 6hrs. We stayed at a place called Fowler’s Campground which has been ‘the place’ for the past 4 years. I went there 2 years ago, but was in Europe last year, so I missed it.

On our drive down, we saw the scariest accident ever. It was like straight out of a movie. A big rig crashes into a SUV (CDMCC thinks it’s a Lincoln Navigator) and the SUV literally flips multiple times. I counted 3, but it was already flipping by the time I saw it. This was on the I-5, about 50miles north of WA’s southern border. It was also during a left curve so we were facing directly into it. There was lumber all over the place and there was big rig that took multiple lanes, so I assumed it was the big rig that hit it.

Some interesting statistics from my Civic’s gasoline mileage:

32.2MPG
38.7MPG
34.8MPG
36.3MPG

I almost broke 40! Darn! I was so close too! I think my Civic’s is suppose to have 30MPG on city roads and 36MPG on freeways. Most of you probably know that Oregon doesn’t have any sales tax, but one interesting fact about Oregon is that all gas stations are full service. You won’t find one that allows self service. However, even with full service, the price per gallon was $2.87. Wow… Gasoline in CA was expensive! I’m not sure if it was because I pumped in the middle of nowhere, but it was priced at $3.31/gallon. This is referring to 87 octane. Price of 87 octane here in Washington is ~$2.97/gallon. Another interesting thing that came up was that we thought how sweet it would be to live in Oregon, but to work in Washington. No state income tax for work and no sales tax for stuff you purchase.

So the remainder of the drive was pretty calm. We arrived at the campsite around 1am and we woke Liam and ChewyDenise up. The rest of the crew showed up the next day which included Lorie and Jeani. Lorie’s roommate Gretchen and her brother Karl also came. We had loads of fun, doing stuff like cooking on top of the campfire, playing card games (asshole, the fool, kings, casino, war, golf, pyramid, race horse, and a couple others I don’t remember on the top of my head), swimming and jumping off waterfalls, sunbathing, making smores, chopping firewood, etc. SFHalcyon ended joining us a day later. We were totally not expecting him to show up, but he did arrive after hiking up Mt. Shasta.

I’ve uploaded all my pictures and videos to: 2006 July 4th Camping Trip. I’ll let the pictures and videos tell the rest of the story. Here are some selected pictures and videos I wanted to share. The videos may take some time to load since I didn’t bother re-encode them into a streamable format. You always have the option to download the video (link beneath the video player) and watch it locally.

Pictures:
andrew jumping off lower fallstoland jumping off lower fallskarl chopping a logmiddle fallsmiddle fallsgretchen and karlliam and denise after their jumpandrew jumping into lower fallsliam and denisekarl and gretchenandrew chopping wood and drinking beerjeani, andrew, and lorie chilling next to the camp firelower fallslorie and jeani sunbathinged about to jump off top of middle fallsed jumping off middle of middle fallsandrew, gretchen, lorie, and jeani warming up after a swimdenise chopping wood with liam holding the log stilldenise trying to split the log with the aid of liam and andrewliam after getting sprayed with winedenise holding up burnt popcorn

Videos:
andrew jumping off middle of middle fallskarl chopping wood while holding a beer bottleed jumping off top of middle falls

I will say that the water was a lot colder this year due to the extra snow and the water current was a lot stronger. I somehow managed to scratched myself and sprained my ankle due to the strong current. This was on top of the many bug bites I already received.

All in all, it was a really fun trip. We left around 8:30am on July 4th and we get back around 4:30pm. I was really tired, so I took a shower and went to sleep pretty early, missing all the fireworks.

Akismet Spam Detector

I’m back! 2 more slipped through during my July 4th weekend.
4,840 Caught / 27 Missed / 0 False Positives (99.4% accuracy)