Xbox 360 Platinum for $344.xx shipped!

Unless you live in Utah or wherever Overstock.com is located.

Just saw this deal on SD: 15% off Coupon + $1 Shipping @ Overstock: Xbox 360 Platinum $344

15% Off Discount
After clicking on the above link, you’ll notice the top of that page says: Your 15% Coupon has been ACTIVATED!

Next, add the Xbox 360 Platinum (with Hardrive) to you cart.

The 15% Off discount only works if you add a non-media item to your order and the people have suggested this nifty item: HP Jornada 520/540 iPAQ Leather Pouch Case for $5.00.

Although your shopping cart page may look like this (incorrect coupon amount):

Subtotal: $403.99
Coupons: – $52.52
Standard Shipping: FREE
Total: $351.47

When you begin to checkout, your total should look like this in the end:

Subtotal: $403.99
Coupons: – $60.60
Shipping Charge:* $0.00
Tax: $0.00
Grand Total: $343.39

The thread mentions shipping is $1, hence the $344.xx, so I’m not sure if you’ll be getting free shipping too. My account might be registered as part of their “O Club”, which they were giving away for free one day.

So the final total is $398.99 (Xbox 360) + $5.00 (leather pouch) – $60.60 (15% off) + $1.00 (shipping) = $344.39 shipped! Plus the fact there’s no taxes (which adds on another $30+ for most people).

I got in on a similar deal 5 months ago for $342.xx, but without the leather pouch, though I don’t think I’m missing much.

Enjoy!

Pocketbike Racer

So I went to Burger King today again to get my 2nd Xbox 360 game: Pocketbike Racer. The game supports up to 4 players on 1 console and up to 8 players on Xbox Live. Apparently, all these games work on the original Xbox too, which I found rather interesting.

It’s a lot like Mario Kart, much more than I originally imagined. Of course it’s not as pretty or as cute, might even be a bit scary and dark given “the King” is there. Basically, you drive around on these pocket bikes and there’s 3 types of bikes to choose from: 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc (similar to Mario Kart). There’s also 4 game types to choose from:

  • Standard Race
  • Battle Royale
  • Cone Trial
  • Ultimate Time Trial

Standard Race is pretty simple. You race with 7 other competitors to see who wins. Along the way, you can increase your boost bar by touching these lighted areas. There’s no box you break to get specials, but as you charge your boost bar, you can exchange them for things such as boost, shield, bombs, firecrackers, rockets, and the disruptor (the thing that got me; which is reversing all the controls).

Battle Royale sounds just like the movie, where you go around and blow up opponents.

Cone Trial is where you skillfully go around cones I guess…

Ultimate Time Trial… I don’t have to explain this right?

Most of the stuff are still locked, but the 10 minutes I spent playing it, I found it rather enjoyable.

I’m not sure if I’ll go back and get the final game: Sneak King. It just doesn’t sound that fun, sneaking up to people to give them a burger, then sneaking away. Plus the fact that means I’ll have to eat another value meal from Burger King.

Parabellum Trailer

My friend Schwartz is working on a new short film called Parabellum. Director of another awesome short film: Beimo, this one’s about the mafia. I won’t say too much as the final edit of the film hasn’t completed yet, but for now, you can watch the trailer. Schwartz must have his contacts cause he even got the winner of Chinatown’s pageant to play the leading actress in this film, and she’s really good looking. 😉

* Parabellum (or para bellum) is Latin for “ready for war”.

I just realized this is probably based off Parabellum – Episode 1, though I’m sort of confused where this story lies now. His girlfriend is not the same person, though the main character is. Episode 1 took a very light focus and was even somewhat funny. This new one that he’s making is pretty much serious all the way through, even somewhat sad.

You can also check out his other videos at What The Film.

Random Crap:

Today’s Japanese term is: 暗部 (anbu) which means the dark side, but is commonly used in anime to refer to the special group of shadow warriors, super skilled and hardly ever seen.

Amazing flame fractals take your breath away (from Digg) – Witness the beauty and elegance of mathematics with 50 breathtaking fractals. Webshots member rajah created these Fractal Flames with Apophysis–a freeware Windows application with which you can design and render fractal flames. According to http://apophysis.wikispaces.com/ and http://www.flam3.com/, Fractal Flames were created by Scott Draves in 1992 and are an “extension of the iterated function system class of fractals”. They’re really pretty!

(NOT WORK SAFE!) With articles like Blowjobs as Comparative Currency (from Digg) and Virtual Sex in Second Life (from Digg), no wonder people are addicted to Second Life. From my limited sample set I worked out that the Average SL-QBJ (Second Life – Quick Blow Job) rate is about L$360. Which if I have my sums right is about $1.5.

Great Cardtrick! (from Digg) – learn a good cardtrick, and amaze your friends 😉 Haha. I remember watching this card trick on TVB and remember figuring out exactly how the trick worked. It’s been too long though.

Olbermann’s Special Comment on Gingrich: “We fight for liberty by having more liberty and not less” (from Digg) – Tonight, Keith took on Newt Gingrich’s controversial remarks from earlier this week where he suggested we re-think free speech as we know it in order to effectively combat the threat of terrorism. Needless to say, Keith — like any true American — took offense to this and didn’t hold back.. I’m starting to really like this Keith guy. Every broadcast of his that I’ve watched, I almost totally agree with. You can also watch the video here.

Seagate CEO: I help people “watch porn” (from Digg) – Not so with Bill Watkins, the mercurial, salty-mouthed Texan who runs the $15 billion hard-drive king Seagate Technology. At a San Francisco dinner on Tuesday evening, he was candid about his company’s ultimate mission: “Let’s face it, we’re not changing the world. We’re building a product that helps people buy more crap – and watch porn. He’s so right! Shoot! *whistles* I take the 5th.

Map (from Digg) – This guy builds one of those Google Map red balloons that pop up when you search for addresses or businesses and has temporarily placed it in front of what looks like a dormitory or apartment complex. Hopefully when Google’s images get refreshed next time, it’ll have this in it. He also has some other interesting projects.

Downloading Super Mario Brothers on the Wii (from Digg) – Straight from the Virtual Console onto the Wii. Apparently Super Mario Bros. is available on the Virtual Console for the Wii in Japan. Still no Super Mario Bros. 3 yet or Super Mario World (my 2 favorite Super Mario games). Watching the video, I totally forgot about that hidden 1-Up mushroom. Apparently Japan also has Super Mario 64 available too.

the return to abalakin
The Return To Abalakin – Alexander Preuss (from Digg)

After searching for the artist, I found this thread: THE RETURN TO ABALAKIN :: PART I, Alexander Preuss (3D). He also has other renderings and zoom-ups of this futuristic looking society. The artist also has a nifty looking homepage displaying other interesting artworks.

Teen crashes car after hearing doll cryA startled 17-year-old girl swerved her car into a freeway guardrail and slammed into a pickup truck after the realistic-sounding baby doll in her care suddenly began to cry. The teenager had just picked up the doll as part of a school project on responsible parenting minutes before the accident occurred Tuesday on I-580, said Steve Creel, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol. … No one was seriously injured in the crash, but the CHP will pursue charges because the girl was driving without a license, he said. I like how they write up this whole story about a doll causing the girl to crash the car, when what the problem really is is the fact she was driving without a license.

NY cracks down on illegal mystery meatsWhen a food safety inspector walked into a market in Queens, he noticed the store had an interesting special posted on its front window: 12 beefy armadillos. In Brooklyn, inspectors found 15 pounds of iguana meat at a West Indian market and 200 pounds of cow lungs for sale at another market. At a West African grocery in Manhattan, the store was selling smoked rodent meat from a refrigerated display case. An inspector quickly seized a couple pounds of it. Yummy.

Out of CTRL – I thought this was a funny comic strip as I’ve always wanted to CTRL+Z (undo) at certain parts in my life, and I don’t blame unprepared parents praying for that feature.

Free Movies from AOL Video

Apparently AOL Video is trying to promote their video download service by giving away 30+ videos on Saturday, December 2, 2006. Unfortunately I gave up after I failed 2 of their requirements. First it didn’t support Firefox, so I swapped over to IE and tried again. I thought they’re probably going to install some ActiveX control, but decided to give it a shot anyway. Then it blew up again and said it currently did not support IE7, and suggested I uninstall IE7 and return to IE6 for the time being. I found that hilarious and the fact that they even provided instructions on how to uninstall IE7 and revert back to IE6:

You can also restore the Hi-Q Video Delivery Manager by using the Add or Remove Programs to uninstall IE 7.0 and revert back to IE 6.0.
Simply navigate to Control Panel and select Add or Remove Programs
Select IE 7.0 and click uninstall
The uninstall process should remove IE 7.0 and restore IE 6.0

I guess this is really 1 requirement which is IE6 being the browser, but I’m not going to uninstall IE7 just to watch a few free movies. However, if you’re still interested in their service, go visit their promotion page. The promotion expires on Sunday, December 3, 2006 at 6am ET.

The list of movies include:

  • Nacho Libre
  • The Muppets Take Manhattan
  • Mission Impossible III
  • SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
  • Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
  • Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
  • My Dog Skip
  • Failure To Launch
  • Jack Frost
  • Zoolander
  • Patriot Games
  • National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
  • School of Rock
  • Last Holiday
  • The Perfect Storm
  • Jackass: The Movie
  • Adam Sandler’s: Eight Crazy Nights
  • Rugrats Go Wild
  • Breakfast at Tiffany’s
  • Can’t Hardly Wait
  • Maid in Manhattan
  • Star Trek I: The Motion Picture
  • Men in Black
  • All I Want for Christmas
  • The Prince and Me
  • The Natural
  • Analyze This
  • D.E.B.S.
  • Easy Rider
  • Flatliners
  • White Christmas
  • The Golden Child

The Digg post mentioned Spider-Man 2 was also free, but I wasn’t able to find it.

How to run explorer.exe as another user

So with the introduction of IE7, my little hack no longer worked, which was having the following shortcut: runas.exe /u:administrator "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"

With the IE7 update, when I enter C:\ into the location bar, it actually opens up a new Explorer window, running as my current user. Before it would automatically open C: drive in the same IE window and let me browse as administrator.

With this block, I decided to see if I could get explorer.exe to launch instead of going through iexplore.exe. Running explorer.exe from an administrator command prompt didn’t do anything. I was able to run start . and get an Explorer window opened, but that was running under me again. I search for explorer.exe switches and found this site: Command-Line Switches for Windows Explorer, however none of those switches seem to work. Calling explorer.exe /? returned immediately without displaying any kind of help.

Finally, I just went and searched for “how to launch explorer as another user” and found this: How do run Explorer as another user which had a very useful reply.

Apparently, the switch you have to pass in is /separate. At first I thought it was just a fake, but then realized I was spelling seperate incorrectly. If you execute the following command: runas.exe /u:administrator "explorer.exe /separate", you’ll be able to start explorer.exe as another user.


Random Crap:

Today’s Japanese phrase is 雪 (yuki) which translates to snow, since we’ve recently had a bunch of snow, but due to today’s warm weather, it’s pretty much gone. Guess I won’t be needing wheel chains anymore. Along with snow, there’s 冬休み (fuyuyasumi) or Winter Vacation. 冬 (fuyu) is Winter and 休み (yasumi) means to rest by itself, but when stuck to onto another noun like one of the 4 seasons, it means vacation. The other seasons are 春 (haru) – Spring; 夏 (natsu) – Summer; 秋 (aki) – Autumn.

Japanese Zen Gardens (from Digg) – a very nice collection of Zen Gardens with you combed through sand and the nice and peaceful rocks (are rocks ever not peaceful?).

Apple Sells “Refreshed” Laptop Filled With Porn To 11 Year Old Girl (from Digg) – An Apple customer was shocked, shocked, when he bought a Macbook from the London Apple Store for his 11-year old daughter, and the desktop was full of pornographic JPGs. As RayAlome says, that’s a feature!

Richard Simmons explains his steamer on Letterman (from RayAlome) – Watch Richard Simmons try to sell you his steamer on The Letterman Show and how Letterman provokes him and finally the KABOOM!

SNEAK PEEK: ‘Heroes’ Mid-Season Finale (from Heroes Revealed) – (WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS) ‘Heroes’ Mid-season Finale Clips! Check out these clips from the upcoming episode. A nice long 5 minute sneak preview of the episode 11.

Spilled Doritos chips wash up on Outer Banks (from Digg) – A cargo container that apparently fell from a ship washed up on the Outer Banks of North Carolina today and spilled thousands of bags of Doritos brand tortilla chips on the beach. Scavengers collected the chips, which were apparently still fresh due to their airtight packaging. It was unknown which ship had lost the cargo or to what port it was bound.

Cell Phone Towers In Disguise (from Digg) – Dr. Debbye Turner reports some folks say cell phone towers can be unsightly, so some providers are becoming masters of disguise. Turner discusses the creative compromise with Julie Chen. 1/4 of all cell phone towers are disguised to blend in with the environment so it isn’t such an eyesore.

fire box traps pranksters
The sending of false fire alarms by mischievous persons may be eliminated through use of a newly developed call box. To use the device, the sender of an alarm must pass a hand through a special compartment to reach the signal dial. Once the dial has been turned, the sender’s hand is locked in the compartment until released by a fireman or policeman with a key. (from Modern Mechanix)

Haha! What if it was a real fire and the you got trapped right next to it. ;p

50 THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW (or 50 Completely Useless Facts!) (from Digg) – quite an interesting list. The ones I found interesting were:

  • Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried bacon. – Worm definitely does not taste like fried bacon, unless you get to fry it beforehand. Then I don’t know.
  • What is called a “French kiss” in the English speaking world is known as an “English kiss” in France.
  • You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath – Do you pass out before you suffocate?
  • Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people
  • Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different! – Guess if we have a licker on our hand, it’d be easy to identify him.
  • Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails! – No wonder my fingernails need more chewing.
  • Women blink nearly twice as much as men. – That’s cause they flirt twice as much as men. Just kidding. ;p
  • An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain
  • A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue! – I wish I could do that.
  • Dolphins sleep with one eye open! – Just like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy states, Dolphins are much smarter. They won’t let you get close, not even when they’re sleeping!
  • Some worms will eat themselves if they can’t find any food! – Some humans would too!

Sex educators plan spray-on condom“We’re trying to develop the perfect condom for men that’s suited to every size of penis,” he said. “We’re very serious.” Krause’s team (spraykondom.de) is developing a type of spray can into which the man inserts his penis first. At the push of a button it is then coated in a rubber condom. Haha! Awesome!

Bill Gates for President! (from Derek) – Bill Gates for President dot net is a movement of people from all over the world who share a set of beliefs. These beliefs are:

  1. The President of the United States of America is not just a political leader in the USA. He or she has an important role in international politics as well.
  2. The President of the United States should not be a slave to large corporations. We see the reality of multi-million-dollar presidential campaigns, but feel worried about the way they are being funded.
  3. The President of the United States should not just be a politician. A true leader has a great variety of competences. A good President is also a manager.

You should also read Scott Adams blog entry: Bill Gates for President

Halfway there

So halfway there generally makes sense when you’re talking about distance or time in regards to traveling, but I was just thinking, it doesn’t work the same way for exercise.

When I need to drive 400 miles, I’m halfway there at the 200 miles mark, or if I need to sit through a 2 hour lecture, I’m halfway there when an hour goes by.

But when you’re doing 80 sit-ups, you’re not really half way there after 90 sit-ups because the last 45 sit-ups take twice as much effort as the 1st 45 sit-ups. If the twice as much effort holds true, you’re really only halfway there when you complete 2/3 of the alloted amount. In other words, you’re really only halfway there when you complete 60 out of the 90 sit-ups.


Random Crap:

Today’s Japanese terms are:
可笑しい (okashii) – strange; funny; amusing; ridiculous; (the kanji literally translates to “worth laughing”)
変 (hen) – change; incident; disturbance; strange; flat (music); odd; peculiar; suspicious-looking; queer; eccentric; funny; (the kanji literally translates to “change”)

Both mean weird/strange/odd and can be used interchangeably. 変 (hen) is also used in 変態 (hentai) which can mean transformation; metamorphosis; abnormality; pervert; but mostly pervert. The kanji literally translates to “change personality/attitude”.

PvP The Series (from Digg) – It is with great pride that we announce the first season of PvP: The Animated Series. Starting in February 2007, PvP will be offered as an animated feature via the web. Each month, via a subscription service, we’ll be delivering a new 4-6 minute episode. This is not your typical flash animation. These are traditionally 2D animated with professional voice actors all collaborating to bring the staff of PVP magazine to life for the first time. Similar to CTRL+ALT+DELETE, PvP is now producing an NON-FREE animated series. It’s currently $20 for 12 4-6 minute episodes, which like CTRL+ALT+DELETE, I think is a rip-off.

One Picture Every Day Spoof (from Digg) – This guy has created a hilarious spoof of those videos where people take a picture of themself every day for a year then combine them into a flip book like montage. His facial expressions are rather funny.

Duct Tape On A MuthaFcukin’ Plane! (from Digg) – I dug up this video I shot back in December ‘04 when I was aboard an Air Deccan flight from Bangalore to Mumbai. Looked out my window and what did I see, A group of guys repairing the wing with some sort of muthafcukin’ duct tape. There’s some more repairs to the left of the one they are working on with what seems to be the same technique. Crossed my fingers, tossed back a shot of Black Label, and stayed on the flight.

Scientists Levitate Small Animals (from /.) – Scientists have now levitated small live animals using sounds that are, well, uplifting. … Xie and his colleagues employed an ultrasound emitter and reflector that generated a sound pressure field between them. The emitter produced roughly 20-millimeter-wavelength sounds, meaning it could in theory levitate objects half that wavelength or less. After the investigators got the ultrasound field going, they used tweezers to carefully place animals between the emitter and reflector. The scientists found they could float ants, beetles, spiders, ladybugs, bees, tadpoles and fish up to a little more than a third of an inch long in midair. When they levitated the fish and tadpole, the researchers added water to the ultrasound field every minute via syringe. Someone made a funny comment on /. saying why the heck would a ladybug need to be levitated? It can already fly!

The Making of a LEGO Brick (from /.) – Let’s hear it for LEGO! Forty-eight years after they were introduced, LEGO toys are still much beloved by children and parents alike for their bright colors, durability, and the amount of imagination they inspire during play. Compared to the high-tech toys of today, LEGO bricks look exceedingly simple. But their precise production process is nothing to scoff at. Each LEGO brick must have that perfect grasp — strong enough to hold onto another brick but easy enough for a child to pull apart. The production of LEGO bricks is so accurate that only 18 out of 1 million LEGO elements produced is considered defective. It’s an astonishing number, considering that 15 billion LEGO components are made every year. We take a look at how classic LEGO bricks are made.

Top 10 Naked People on Google Earth (from Digg) – (NOT SAFE FOR WORK!) You’ve all seen the original Google Sightseeing Topless Sunbather already, but did you know that the Hague is in fact completely overrun with naked and semi-naked Dutch men and women? Yes people, it’s time to get your magnifying glasses out, because here comes the Top 10 Naked People on Google Earth!

You’ve probably heard of Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld) blasting off his guests using the N-word and how he later went onto Letterman’s to apologize. National Lampoon pieced together clips from the incident, the apology, and Seinfeld episodes and made this rather funny video: Seinfeld – The Lost Episode

Court says U.S. discriminates against blind with currencyThe U.S. government discriminates against blind people because American currency is not designed to be distinguishable to visually impaired people, a federal judge said on Tuesday. … “Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and colour in all their denominations,” he wrote. I always wondered why other countries used different sized paper bills.

Innovative supermarket in China (from Digg) – What do you get when you merge a roller coaster with a supermarket? Well, see for yourself. I wonder if it makes shopping longer or shorter (for the men of course).

Street Fighter: The Later Years – Part 2 (from RayAlome) – CollegeHumor returns to the lives of the Street Fighter characters 1 day later. But, like, 1 day later than 10 years later or whatever. Another episode in this amazing series! Though… M. Bison doesn’t really look like M. Bison.

Scientists say trained bees can sniff bombsScientists at a U.S. weapons laboratory say they have trained bees to sniff out explosives in a project they say could have far-reaching applications for U.S. homeland security and the Iraq war. I wonder how much bee is worth.

Impeachment

I just had a horrible thought. If President Bush does get impeached and is convicted, guess who becomes our next President… *shivers* I think I’d rather have Bush stay as President for 2 more years.


Random Crap:

Following the same line of a previous Japanese term, 耳飾り (mimikazari) means earrings, but in modern day, it’s more commonly known as ピアス (piasu) which was derived from the word pierce. For the finger ring, you’d think it be yubikazari, but unfortunately this breaks the rule and is actually termed as 指輪 (yubiwa) – ring. However, modern times has also used another familiar term for those who’ve seen the movie: リング (ringu).

LineRider ZaDa (direct link to swf) (from Digg) – The new and improved Line Rider with advanced and much needed tools such as the eraser and the accelerating lines.

Heroes: Non-US Promo Clip (from Digg) – (WARNING: SPOILERS) Although the title says it’s a promo, I believe this is a preview for episode 10. I didn’t particularly get what following comment referred to: Pay particular attention to a painting with a certain type of dinosaur and the little guy next to it.

heroes - promo clip - dinosaur

What about the dinosaur and the little guy? Hiro is going to travel back in time and fight a dinosaur? Is Hiro going to take the exploding man back in time and coincide it with the meteor hitting earth? Or is it really the exploding man that cause the extinction of the dinosaurs?

Coin In Plate With Water (from Digg) – here is a cool scientific way to take a coin in a plate with water without wetting your fingers. I was thinking instead of of complicated candle and glass setup, can I just put on some waterproof gloves and pick the coin up without wetting my fingers?

China urges pre-flight toilet training to save fuelA Chinese airline has calculated that it takes a litre of fuel to flush the toilet at 30,000 feet and is urging passengers to go to the bathroom before they board. … “The energy used in one flush is enough for an economical car to run at least 10 kilometres,” Captain Liu Zhiyuan, who flies regularly between Hangzhou and Beijing, was quoted as saying. Citing a survey by the company’s logistics department, Liu said carrying one kilogram of items such as blankets and pillows by air for one hour uses 0.2 kg of fuel. Interestingly enough, pee and poop weighs a lot too. If everyone took a dump or a piss before boarding the plane, the less weight would also save fuel.

Tony vs. Paul (from Esca) – A stop motion battle between two friends turned enemies. A point and shoot animation done frame by frame. Pretty neat actually. The sand movement animation totally reminded me of Gaara’s move in Naruto: Desert Funeral.

Wii Have A Problem… (from MS newsgroup) – “Wii have a problem” is a blog focused on bringing you the latest trend in gaming violence. That of damaged electronic loved ones caused from Wii related activities. Why? Because we’re fanboys that’s why. Someone questioned how this is different then throwing an Xbox 360 controller at the TV (I assumed jokingly). However, he then made a comment about saying it’s the users fault, how you don’t really need to use all that force to play with the wiimote, people are releasing the controller instead of holding it like they’re suppose to, and how after many hours of playing, the wiimote never slipped from his hand. At this point, I chimed in and said there is a difference. Normally, you wouldn’t take a bat or a tennis racket inside the house to practice your swing, especially not your living room with your TV and tons of other easily breakable items. If I do practice my swing in my living room and it slips my hand and crashes into my TV, then I can really only blame myself for being *cough*. However, the wiimote was intended to be used in front of your TV, so there’s no avoiding that. I also didn’t see a problem with using a lot of force with the wiimote. When you get into a game, often times you start button mashing really hard and really fast, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Playing with little activity is one way to play it, but playing the Wii with real swings vs wimpy swings should be perfectly fine. There are multiple ways to decrease accidents like these. Of course everyone’s mentioned the thin strap. A better gripping material would also help, like the stuff they use on the handles of tennis rackets and bats.

Piro

Piro the Siamese cat from Kanon is just too cute!

From Episode 7:
piropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiro

From Episode 8:
piropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiro

Spoilers: (Show)

Cascada?

What’s with my Cascada post?!?! It’s received almost 2,500 viewings so far, while 2nd place hasn’t even reached 200. I have been getting a lot of spam comments on that particular post and my stats are showing “Cascada” as one of the main keywords from search engines coming to my site, but I don’t particularly see anything special about that post. I wish there was a feature in search engines that would let you do a query and pass in a link and it’ll tell you which result # you are. That’d be neat!

I think I found out why so many people are visiting my page searching for “Cascada”. Apparently Google’s image search returns me as result #19 on page 1.


Random Crap:

Today’s Japanese term is 首飾り (kubikazari) which means necklace.

Body-wired headphonesThe new system uses the listener’s body as a capacitor that carries a tiny electrostatic charge. A music or video player sends a fluctuating signal to a conductive cloth pad – such as a wrist band – and this slightly charges the wearer’s body. A pair of conductive ear pads in the headphones pick-up the signal and rapidly convert it back into sound. Neat!

Streamick (from Digg) – Streamick.com provides the largest broadband internet TV service of the web. Thousands of users use Streamick.com every day to connect to the major internet broadcasters and watch free live internet TV in the easier way possible. Pretty neat service. Quality is actually decent.

13 things that do not make sense (from Digg) – 13 phenomenons that science can’t seem to explain.

Man seeks record for arm hair lengthJon Sanford takes good care of his hair, washing it regularly and conditioning it occasionally. Now he might break a record for that hair — on his arms. One particularly long strand measured 4.1 inches. If the measurement is ruled official by Guinness World Records, Sanford will have topped the previous record of 3.96 inches

101 Things you do NOT want your System Administrator to say. (from Digg) – Pretty funny. Really seems to be more like 97 things.

Eight Things You Should Never Say to Your Bartender (from Digg) – It seems I’ve already violated rule #1.

Whiteboard music (from Digg) – pretty cool whiteboard animation.

Stokke Gravity Chair Leans Back and Forward: We’re Stoked (from Digg) – Further proving you don’t have to be in orbit to be weightless, the Gravity Chair from Norwegian baby products maker Stokke can sit upright as an office chair, function as a rocker, and lean way back for that serious contemplation your boss told you to stop doing. See it in its variety of unusual permutations, after the jump.

Get a Laptop (from Digg) – pretty funny commercial.

Top 20 replies by Programmers to Testers when their programs don’t work (from Digg) – another funny list of things to read. The #1 response: It works on my machine. Haha. Neat! haha = 哈哈 (accidentally switch my IME).

Food Network: “There’s much penis going on here” (from Deadlock) – haha. I guess there’s a word such as pea-ness.

Mitch Hedberg Random Quote Generator (from Digg) – I still laugh. What would be neat is if they provided some code that you could add to your site and you can put Mitch’s Random Quote: ____________________ on your website.

Drunk Fails Sobriety Test (from Digg) – This is hilarious. This dude fails the sobriety test before it even begins. The cop asks him to hold a tape and place it on the ground and he passes out and lands on his head.

Megadeth’s “Gears of War” Song Available for Download (from Digg) – Heavy metal band Megadeth has made available as a free download its “Gears of War” song composed exclusively for Epic Games’ third-person shooter.

Body mod – Turn your pee blue! – Haha. By congesting a bunch of “supposedly” harmless blue food dye, you can turn your pee blue! That’d be neat!

So much SNOW!

Driving home was sort of a pain today. Cars were going really slow. Took me about 10 minutes to go 2 blocks. The average freeway speed was about 40MPH.

Then there was the hill. I live somewhat on the side of a big hill and the drive back was somewhat scary where my tires sometimes lost traction and turn left/right didn’t really respond. That probably means I’ll need to get some chains for my wheel. The closer I got to home, the more snow there was (due to the fact less people drove there, so less snow got rubbed away). Anyway, I get to about 10 yards from my house and my wheels get stuck. No matter what I try, it wouldn’t go up anymore. I had tried scooping the snow away from the front of my wheels, but that didn’t seem to help. A couple friendly neighbors came and help. We tried putting cardboard underneath the wheels and that helped somewhat, but still didn’t really get much further.

They ended up helping me push my car in front of another neighbor’s driveway for now and hopefully the snow will melt away soon.

Turns out my trip home wasn’t as bad as my fellow colleagues. It took them 6 hours and a couple near death encounters compared to my mere 45mins. Looking at the weather, it looks like it’ll be warmer tomorrow. People are already sending in WFH (work from home) emails.

Global warming? Haha.


Random Crap:

Today’s Japanese phrases are 大切 (taisetsu) and 命 (inochi) which means important and life respectively. Together 命は大切 (taisetsu ha inochi) means well, life is important.

Free Services to Inspire Your Cellphone (from Digg) – Here, for your gratitude-generating pleasure, is a rundown of some of the most exciting and powerful services awaiting your cellphone at this very moment. Better yet, at the moment, they’re all free. So interesting story. I was on my way to get my eye examined, but I forget which plaza the doctor’s in. I know the general area it was in, but this being my visit, I was too 2 blocks from my house already and it was too far to go back. I called 1-800-FREE-411 and listened to a 10-15sec advertisement and got the the phone number, despite me saying “overlake eye center” vs “overlake eye design”. Do note, someone mentioned if you mix up the FREE and 411 (e.g. 1-800-411-FREE), you get connected to an adult server. The free international calls is interesting. I wonder if you really have to use a cell phone for that.

Science a la Joe Camel (from Digg) –

The producers of former vice president Al Gore’s film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.

In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other “special interests” might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn’t want to offer “political” endorsement of the film; and they saw “little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members” in accepting the free DVDs.

Gore, however, is not running for office, and the film’s theatrical run is long since over. As for classroom benefits, the movie has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading climate scientists worldwide, and is required viewing for all students in Norway and Sweden.

Still, maybe the NSTA just being extra cautious. But there was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place “unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.” One of those supporters, it turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.

Sigh… when the educational system fears to distribute knowledge because of repercussions by their supporters turning off the money tap, that’s when you know how bad our educational system has gotten.

Speaking of which, someone submitted this letter on Digg:
teacher is wrong but still gives detention

April 20th, 1994

Dear Mrs. _____,

You may already know this, but in case Alex has neglected to tell you, I am assigning him to detention for one hour this Friday, April 22nd. The reason is as follows:

Alex consistently defied me. During class he contradicted me numerous times when I insisted that the length of one kilometer was greater than that of one mile. Every other student in class accepted my lesson without argument, but your son refused to believe what I told him, offering such rebuttals as, “You’re lying to the class,” and commanding other students to challenge my curriculum.

Although he was correct, Alex’s actions show a blatant disregard for authority, and a complete lack of respect for his school. In the future, Alex would be better off simply accepting my teachings without resistance.

Please see to it that your son understands this.

Regards,
Adam Hilliker

I have a feeling it’s a fake, though Friday, April 22nd, 1994 does exist. Though that last sentence seems awfully forceful and the fact that a student was commanding other students to challenge her curriculum is something you hear in college, not elementary or high school (which it sounds like). Then there’s the fact a 1994 email just popped up on the internet in the year 2006. Though if it’s true… MY GOD!

Was reading Foxtrot and the iguana is so cute!!!
foxtrot iguana