Author: Krunk

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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.

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5% Cash Back on American Express SimplyCash Business Card

I also saw this on Ben’s Bargains: American Express SimplyCashSM Business Card – Earn 5% cash back on gas, office supplies, and wireless services. Earn 1% cash back on virtually all other purchases. Cash back is automatically credited to the statement each month. There’s also a thread on SD about this, though people don’t seem to receive it that well. However, it still sounds like an awesome rewards card. 5% back on gas, office supplies and wireless services.

I personally won’t be getting this card because I already have an Advanta Mastercard which already gives me 5% back on gasoline, office supplies, utilities, computer equipment, cell phones and Internet services. Mastercard is also more widely accepted. Both require you to have a “small business”, but an easily overcomable obstacle.

There is one good thing about this cash back is that it’s automatically deducted from your next statement. No more saving up to $50 before you can request your cash back.

Got this email a few days ago:

Your HSBC Direct Online Savings Account gives New Money 6.00% APY* until April 30. So if you have money elsewhere, it’s time to move it and make the most of your savings.

During the New Money promotion, deposits from outside of HSBC earn a market-leading 6.00% APY*. That’s 11 times what traditional savings accounts offer.** And checking accounts obviously can’t compare.

There’s no reason to leave your cash lying around anywhere else. Log on to move your money into your HSBC Direct account now, and earn 6.00% APY* for as many days as you can until April 30.

Your HSBC Direct Customer Service Team

Sigh… This was exactly what ING Direct pulled which made me decide to switch to HSBC Direct. Then again, at that time, ING Direct wasn’t the one with the highest interest rate. Guess I could stick with HSBC Direct awhile longer, though unfortunately I won’t be able to take advantage of the 6.00% interest as I’m planning some big purchases this month and will be pulling money out of there.

Including:
My 1080p HDTV:
Vizio 1080P 47″ LCD HDTV for $1650
OR
Samsung 67″ 1080P DLP® HDTV w/ Stand for $2500

Dryer: (my current one takes like 4hrs to dry a load)
Whirlpool Electric Dryer Super Capacity 6.5 CuFt 6 Cycles for $360

Exercise bike: (thought I’d exercise while watching my brand new HDTV)
Everlast Recumbent Bike for $350
OR
Everlast Upright Exercise Bike for $350

Media Center PC – I’m looking at about $1,000. I’m slowly getting parts. Plus my main box is also due for an upgrade, so maybe $2,000 here? Sigh… I’m going broke. Guess this is my belated Christmas and birthday presents to myself.

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Random Crap

First I want to wish Lsiymle a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

100 FREE Downloads from eMusic (from Decathanerd) – appears to be for people who purchased a COWON product, but I don’t believe the registration requires any sort of proof. I haven’t done this myself, but eMusic is famous for no DRM on their music and that their songs work on any digital music playing device. The default account gets 25 FREE songs and signing up from this link bumps it to 100. Let me know what your experience is with this service. You have 30 days to choose 100 songs from 1 million.

Tooth chipped on cookie ruled work-related – A salesman who chipped a tooth on a cookie while visiting a customer is entitled to compensation for his dental work after a court ruled it a work-related injury. I just found this to be awfully silly. It seems to make work reliable for everything you do on their clock, including “any” accidents that may happen outside of the work area.

Jeremy Wai – Cap Through Coke Bottle (from Artemyst) – A coke cap penetrates a coke bottle. Jeremy Wai is a pretty neat magician which has a ton more magic tricks on YouTube.

listpic – Craigslist Pic Viewer (from The Consumerist) – as the title goes, it’s a picture viewer of all craigslist listings and sorts them by date and price. For example, you can do a query, set a min/max price and the results will come back as images instead of just text and links where people generally have aren’t good at filling out. For example, here are all the furniture listings for Seattle.

VG Cats – Detergent – BAN… KAI!!! It’s a reference anime watchers will get. This is based of a anime/manga called Bleach. Now does the title of the comic make more sense? I’m not sure if this kitties have names, but the the pink female one is representing Kuchiki Byakuya and the gray male one is representing Kurosaki Ichigo. I’m not sure what the reference of the “rat” or “morning-star” is. Maybe someone can explain that to me.

After look up morning-star on Wikipedia, it apparently was a medieval weapon in the form of a spiked club resembling a mace, usually with a long spike extending straight from the top in addition to a number of smaller spikes around the circumference of the head. I guess the “rat” comes from the part where they’re cats and cats eat rats. Maybe?

According to ElBandMonkey and Nekobo: I think it’s from Dungeons and Dragons, where people joke about the ultimate weapon being a rat on a flail, an allusion to back in the day when people use to catapult dead rats during sieges over castle walls to poison the populace. According to their Bleach entry, Leo’s Bankai form and the Rat Morning-star (build up on the Rat Flail) were tough.

Student wants to ‘rent’ a girlfriend – A desperate Chinese university student wants to “rent” a girlfriend for 10 days so he can show her off to his parents over the Lunar New Year holiday, state media reported Wednesday. … Wang Jisheng, a professor with the Psychology Institution of the Chinese Academy Sciences, was quoted as saying Zhu was trying to show filial piety to his parents but was only cheating them.

Bellevue scores high again in water quality report (from MS newsgroup) – Drinking water in Bellevue remains safe for consumption. According to the 2006 Water Quality Report, prepared in accordance with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, Bellevue’s drinking water meets or exceeds all state and federal drinking water standards.

Apple UK: “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC.” Smashing, isn’t it? (from Digg) – Here’s the UK version I’m a Mac, I’m a PC ad.

Top 5: Piggy Banks, Stylish Savings (from The Consumerist) – these piggy banks are rather cute!

Windows Vista in pictures (from Digg) – Look at all the pretty pictures ;p

Fan made Star Wars Wii video (from Digg) – One reader’s idea of how a Star Wars game might work on the Wii. Now if we could just get Lucasarts to actually make one! The other day I was just talking to StanMan about a Star Wars Wii game where the Wiimote would act as the light saber holder. This guy takes it to the next level.

Uncle Sam spoils dream trip to space (from MS newsgroup) – Brian Emmett’s childhood fantasy came true when he won a free trip to outer space. But the 31-year-old was crushed when he had to cancel his reservation because of Uncle Sam. … Then reality hit. After some number-crunching, Emmett realized he would have to report the $138,000 galactic joy ride as income and owe $25,000 in taxes. Unwilling to sink into debt, the software consultant from the San Francisco Bay area gave up his seat. There was a discussion thread on paying taxes on the actual value of gift and not the MSRP. For example, if you get a free copy of Windows, although the MSRP is like $300, the actual value is closer to $100-$150, so you only have to pay taxes on the actual value. I forgot what the term was.

Famous quotes on Sex (from Digg) (NSFW) – some pretty funny quotes by famous people. Worth the read and laugh.

Casino Changes Tune; Retiree Gets Jackpot After All (from Digg) – Stephen Wilkinson is a happy man this weekend — $102,000 happier. Wilkinson thought he struck it rich Monday while playing slots at a new parlor at Philadelphia Park. But the parlor then said it was all a mistake and refused to pay him the jackpot, offering two free meals instead. On Friday night, the operators of the parlor at the Bensalem racetrack had a change of heart and phoned Wilkinson, saying they wanted to do the right thing. An update to the previous posted story of him getting ripped off because of a “software glitch”.

If Women Acted Like Men (from Deadlock) (NSFW!) – This beautiful girl acts in this hilarious underwear commercial as a guy in the morning Caught on Video. The way this girl acts she can be passed as a guy.

The Fancy Pants Adventure (from Digg) – a really fun flash game that seems to have a mix of Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog in this side-scroller.

Keifer Admits to Abusing Bauer Action Figure (from Digg) –

“We took the doll out for a night to have some fun and we’d had some drinks. We sat it on the corner of the table. We started torturing him around 11 o’clock at night, and, by two o’clock in the morning, we had set him on fire in the parking lot.

“We got up the next day and there was just this puddle of wax. His clothes didn’t burn, which I thought was pretty cool…and then I got a call the next day saying, ‘Did you like the doll?’ I said, ‘Yeah, it was great.’ And they said, ‘Well, OK, good, you gotta send it back to us because that was the prototype…It took that guy a year to make it.’ I said, ‘Well, let me look for it, I think I left it in the trailer.’ This went on for about a week and then I had to just kinda come clean.”

Google TV – An Elaborate Hoax (from Digg) – A heavily produced YouTube video from Mark Erickson at “Infinite Solutions” shows users how to get in on the super-secret (and non existent) Google TV beta. It’s rather amazing if this was true.

USAA Lets You Remotely Deposit Checks – We got a flier in our recent USAA bill announcing they’re now letting customers deposit checks from. Just sign and scan your checks and send it in through the USAA website. As far as we know, USAA is the only bank to offer this service to consumers. I always wished that such a service existed. I mean I can do all my banking electronically. The only thing I can’t do is get cash and deposit checks. 1 of the 2 problems are solved, now we just need some way to print cash ;p

Paint.NET v3.0 is OUT! (from Digg) – I’ve been using Paint.NET v2.0 as a replacement to Photoshop as it basically does all that I need to do inside Photoshop. The best part is it’s free. It does have 1 slight problem where it only supports WMI scanners and mine I’m guessing isn’t WMI compatible.

NES Nintendo – EVERY GAME EVER MADE – 670 LOT Licensed (from Digg) – I remember my friend Jeff Tori in Jr. High who told me he’d give up all his games and future games if he could just have an NES console with all the games. At that time I recall Playstation was the popular console and FFVII was the popular game at that time.

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Old Site

My 3 year free hosting at 1&1 expired a few days ago and originally I wasn’t planning on extending the service. I already have my own paid domain and web hosting service at Dreamhost and didn’t think it was necessary to have 2. Plus if I recall correctly, 1&1 was charging $10/mo for a pretty cheap service (1gb of space and 5gb of bandwidth/month). However, the 1&1 thread in B$ became active again as people began to ask what to do now that their 1&1 account was expiring.

For those who wanted a cheap service, I suggested E-RICE which is $10/yr and I heard the service is good and reliable. For those who can’t afford to have any downtime, I suggested to just stay with 1&1 because the price was actually $3.99/mo and that’s not too bad. For $48/yr and reliable service, it’s a decent deal.

I’ve been meaning to port over my old site’s blog entries into WordPress, but never really got the time. If you look at my archives, you can tell that I’ve started as there’s a few months of 2002 in there. Initially I was hoping to port all my entries before my account expires, but then I got lazy. I do have everything backed up (all my files, my databases, etc). Now that I find out it’s not $10/mo, but just $3.99/mo, I thought why not just extend my contract.

Someone on the thread mention about the $2.99/month Hosting Beginner plan. I had seen this plan initially, but thought it wasn’t that great. The space and bandwidth were more than my current plan, but I must’ve misread it because I thought this plan had no databases (i.e. MySQL) and even my old blog ran on a database. But apparently it comes with 10 databases and has 10GB of space and 300GB of bandwith/month (vs 1GB and 5GB respectively), and for $1 cheaper, it seemed like the obvious choice.

I began searching around their FAQ to find out how to downgrade, if possible. I found this:

DOWNGRADES
You can downgrade a package by contacting support at support@1and1.com
or call support at 1 877 435 7281

I shot them a email and they approved my downgrade. Apparently, it’s the same process as canceling where you goto https://cancel.1and1.com and began a cancellation process. After you select the plan you want to cancel, it gives you a choice of cancellation or switch to another plan. I tried to switch to another plan but was given an error that I’m not allowed to switch plans within 30 days of switching (which I’m guessing they’re counting my FREE to $3.99/mo switch). I shot another email to support asking what to do and within a couple hours, I was able to switch. It actually gave me a whole bunch of choices, but I had already decided which plan I wanted a long time ago. Do note, they have to approve your downgrade/upgrade before you can do this process. I know because I canceled another account earlier and the choice of downgrading/upgrading wasn’t available.

Another cool thing about the $2.99/month plan is that it comes with a free domain. I have finally completed my TRIO:

krunk4ever.com
krunk4ever.net
krunk4ever.org

http://www.krunk4ever.net currently just points to my old blog. I no longer have to remember this awful URL: http://s86952823.onlinehome.us. I’ve also decided it was a good time to add some ads to it. I don’t really know how much traffic my old site gets, but why not make some money off of it while I’m in there mucking around.

One thing I did noticed was I no longer had shell access. My 1&1 was my first web hosting company that provided shell access which was really neat and really useful if you know what you’re doing. However, with the downgraded plan, I noticed shell access is now disabled. Not really a big deal for me since I don’t plan to do much more development on this site, but if my main site was located on this server, I would definitely need shell access.

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Free International Phone Calls

You’ve probably heard of AllFreeCalls and Future Phone where you call some number in Iowa and make free long distance calls. They make their money with a new law that all incoming calls are charged a few cents and then just pipe you over the VoIP network. It’s been brought to my notice that Future Phone is no longer available. I also found it funny that they have a big red sign across their homepage saying: THIS SERVICE IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE. However AllFreeCalls is still going strong and getting more people everyday.

I was thinking… with Google Maps’ Click to Call feature Windows Live’s Call for free feature, we can have free calls and not pay long distance to Iowa. I’m assuming that AllFreeCalls will still get paid since it’s still considered an incoming call and even more people will start to use this service.

I’ve always considered these features to sort of be like Jajah, where Jajah initiates the call to both ends and therefore is the one paying the toll. Google and Windows Live just supports it for businesses, and well, AllFreeCalls is considered a business. If they decide to add their listing to Google Maps or Windows Live, it’s basically free calls for everyone.

Random Crap:

I’m thinking, given that I tend to write multiple entries in one sitting and not write anything for a few days, I’m going to start queuing them up. Meaning, I’ll still be writing multiple entries in one setting, but I’ll change the publish date instead of immediate to a day or 2 later. That way it won’t be like reading 5 posts of random crap in 1 day vs reading 5 random crap posts over period of 5 days.

Also wanted to wish GwaGwaSan and Mister0124 a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Product Placement (from Digg) – news article headline shows: Teacher hit by car outside Queens school and then there’s a pop up ad for Toyota. ;p

The Best Homework Ever? (from Digg) – Cassidy Curtis’s marvelous surface drawings Those drawings are rather neat. Reminds me of Mechy.

Iowa students get laundry e-mail alerts – Ding! Time to throw your drawers in the dryer. That’s the message University of Iowa students can now receive by e-mail. Thanks to software installed along with new high-efficiency washers last fall, the school’s dormitory residents can receive e-mail alerts when their laundry cycles have finished. I wished this was available back when I was in college. Usually I remember to go down to get my clothes, but once in awhile, I don’t remember until the next day.

Artist to honour Wii heroes with statuettes – In the old days, heroes were commemorated with stone statues in public squares. In today’s video game obsessed society, players can get a Mii. U.S. artist Paul Thiel is crafting figurines that are replicas of the virtual characters users of Nintendo’s popular console Wii play games with. Neat! If you have a Mii that really resembles you, I can see this being a totally awesome gift.

Web site helps name that tune in your head – You know that annoying tune that you can’t place or get out of your head? A U.S. company has recently launched a Web site, www.midomi.com, that names most tunes that you can hum, sing or whistle a tune into your computer microphone. If you give this a try, do let me know if it works.

Man bets wife in card game, loses – A Russian man lost his wife in a game of cards after putting her up as a stake instead of cash. … When he lost the game and his opponent Sergey Brodov turned up to claim his winnings his wife Tatiana was so angry she decided to divorce her husband and started a relationship with Brodov. Haha! Awesome way to get rid of your wife. 😉

One Year Later, Quadruple Amputee Still Wants Answers (from Digg) – A local woman went to the hospital to have a baby, and while she was there, she contracted a flesh-eating bacteria, WESH 2 News reported. Doctors had to amputate both her arms and both her legs to save her. That was one year ago, and she’s still searching for answers. Such a sad story… If I was her, I’d like some answers too!

Pink milk puzzles farmer – A farmer whose cows produced pink milk after eating carrots solved the problem by feeding them white carrots instead. Pink milk reminds me of strawberry milk.

Why can’t a person tickle himself? (from Digg) – . Our studies at University College London have shown that the cerebellum can predict sensations when your own movement causes them but not when someone else does. When you try to tickle yourself, the cerebellum predicts the sensation and this prediction is used to cancel the response of other brain areas to the tickle. Ahhh! So that’s the key to not being ticklish!

That’s an ad on your egg – Which came first — the chicken or the ad? In a month-long campaign that began in Japan on Thursday, 1.8-cm (0.8-inch) advertising stickers touting chicken ramen instant noodles will be stuck on the shells of ordinary eggs, sold in packs of 10. Updated the link that has an image of it.

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Antivenom

At dinner the other night at Ruth’s Chris, Xyon brought up the topic if we knew how snake antivenin was made. None of use knew, so he tells us how they milk the snakes venom out of their fangs and inject a small amount of it into a horse. Apparently the horse’s immune system is a lot better than humans and given their large body mass, it was easier for them to produce antivenom for snake poison. Apparently from that point on, they just extract the antivenom from these horses. Rather neat!

Random Crap:

Iguana’s stubborn erection to get the chop – Mozart, an iguana with an erection that has lasted for over a week, will have his penis amputated in the next couple of days. Veterinarians at Antwerp’s Aquatopia had sought to treat the animal’s problem, but decided removal was the only solution because of the risk of infection. The good news for Mozart and his mates is that male iguanas have two penises. *shivers* I guess having a backup penis is always a good thing.

I have no idea why anyone would still use RapidShare given that 1 download/hr and the 2 minute wait before your download would start. There was a thread on Digg that introduced me to MediaFire and this new service really neat! The one I’ve been using for awhile now is Files.to. It’s a nice way to share 1 file to a bunch of friends without wasting your own bandwidth. The only advantage I see MediaFire having over Files.to is the fact there is no file size limit. Tera and HJO3 both mentioned to me that there was a 100MB file size limit which I missed initially. However, as I responded to them, with a tool like WinRAR where I can break any file into chunks and with their simultaneous download feature, it’s become a non-problem. I’ll admit it’s a bit more hassle, but come on, it’s free. I forget if there was a wait for Files.to, but even if there was, it was rather short and I could have multiple downloads at fast speeds. MediaFire has the best of all worlds. They don’t have a file size limit, simultaneous downloads, and no wait time!

Microwave zaps germs on sponges, study finds – Two minutes in a microwave oven can sterilize most household sponges, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. A team of engineering researchers at the University of Florida found that two minutes of microwaving on full power killed or inactivated more than 99 percent of bacteria, viruses or parasites, as well as spores, on a kitchen sponge. 2 days later: Microwave experiments cause sponge disasters – They described how they soaked the sponges in wastewater and then zapped them. (Microwave zaps germs on sponges.) But several experimenters evidently left out the crucial step of wetting the sponge. “Just wanted you to know that your article on microwaving sponges and scrubbers aroused my interest. However, when I put my sponge/scrubber into the microwave, it caught fire, smoked up the house, ruined my microwave, and pissed me off,” one correspondent wrote in an e-mail to Reuters. Hahahaha. Unfortunately, I think Reuters/CNN is to be blamed here. If you read this article: Microwave ‘sterilisers’ warning (from The Consumerist), it clearly advises users to do the following (twice): The researchers said people should only try to microwave damp sponges. … He recommended microwaving damp not dry sponges to minimise the risk of fire and to only microwave non-metal scrubbing pads. However, in the condensed version posted on Reuters/CNN, there is no such advice posted anywhere.

Humvee Driving In Iraqi Traffic (from Derek) – This is a really cool video of a Humvee driving through Iraqi traffic. In order to avoid insurgent attacks they cant stop or slow down, even if that requires some improvised driving. As Derek says, this is the reason to own a Humvee.

Try a Free Sample of Gillette Fusion (from SD) – A new Walmart promotion allowing you to get free Gillette Fusion razor (with 5 blades). It also brought me back to StartSampling, a site I used to get a bunch of freebies from:

Samples Ordered

  • Games for Windows Magazine 01/24/07 04:49 AM
  • Swiffer Duster® Sample & Coupon 01/24/07 04:48 AM
  • Herbal Essences Intensive Blends 03/13/03 03:36 AM
  • $1 Off Lysol Products 11/15/02 06:56 PM
  • Razor Defense™ by Neutrogena MEN 10/03/02 03:35 AM
  • Musician Dana Mase: Free Album* 04/26/02 05:20 AM
  • BIC® PLUS™ Shaver – Men’s 03/05/02 06:48 PM
  • Nescafé Coffee 01/14/02 09:15 PM
  • Fit Fruit and Vegetable Wash 04/18/01 12:19 PM
  • Twizzlers Twists 10/06/00 04:34 PM
  • 3D Movie Madness 09/22/00 05:29 PM
  • Cranberry Horseradish Coupon 09/18/00 04:27 PM
  • Sight Savers Lens Cleaners 09/03/00 11:14 PM
  • Airheads Candy 08/17/00 12:33 AM
  • Shout Wipes Stain Treater 07/17/00 05:27 PM
  • LifeSavers Wint O Green 07/15/00 05:11 PM
  • Slim Jim Snacks 06/21/00 07:02 PM

Boy’s screaming kills chickens, for crying out loud – Hundreds of chickens have been found dead in east China — and a court has ruled that the cause of death was the screaming of a four-year-old boy who in turn had been scared by a barking dog, state media reported on Wednesday. … A court ruled the boy’s screaming was “the only unexpected abnormal sound” and that 443 chickens trampled each other to death in fear.

I was watching the latest episode of 24 and was like OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! Apparently Jack has more family! They first mentioned Jack’s father and I was like ooooh. Then they said he had a brother, and I was like OOOOOH. Then when they showed us who his brother was, I was like OH MY GOD! If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you MUST see it. Then they showed the brother’s wife and I was like is that who I think it is… no… is it really her? Apparently the actress playing the wife is the same actress that plays Nathan Petrelli’s wife from Heroes. Her name is Rena Sofer.

Japanese marine park captures rare shark on film – A species of shark rarely seen alive because its natural habitat is 600 meters (2,000 ft) or more under the sea was captured on film by staff at a Japanese marine park this week. … Frilled sharks, which feed on other sharks and sea creatures, are sometimes caught in the nets of trawlers but are rarely seen alive. Check out the the video. The shark is freaky!

Frozen Tidal Wave / Melting Glacier (from Digg) – really neat photos!

durex - happy father's day
Durex Condom Ad (from Squiffy’s House of Fun) – Happy Father’s Day.