Computer – Page 16 – Krunk4Ever!

February 19, 2007

Dryer

I got my Whirlpool dryer installed a week ago. Haven’t actually gotten to use it yet though. It was pretty big and took more space than my old one, due to a fatter exhaust pipe. However, now my dryer and washing machine are matching. My next laundry is next weekend so I’ll report back to you how long it takes me to dry my clothes.

Random Crap:

Porn movie causes trouble for two men (from Digg) – Police made contact with the neighbor, a 39-year-old man, who told them he heard a woman screaming from upstairs and feared she was being sexually assaulted. The subject said he grabbed the 39-inch sword, went upstairs and kicked in the door to investigate. … The victim told his neighbor, and later showed police the evidence, that the noise came from a pornographic movie he was watching.

OpenCola – Open Source Coca Cola (from Digg) – OpenCola is a brand of cola unique in that the instructions for making it are freely available and modifiable. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe as long as they, too, license their recipe under the GNU General Public License. The original webpage opencola.com is no longer available and has been replaced with a link farm, but you can find all the information you need on the Wikipedia page.

Sex in fast lane halts traffic on Israeli road – Israeli police investigating why a car was blocking traffic in the fast lane of a major highway on Sunday found a couple inside having sex.

Cyanide and Happiness – STD – At first I didn’t get the joke. What the heck is “the bar”? What are they talking about? But after Angelus mentioned it might be the censorship/mosaic rendering, it made much more sense.

Dave Devries The Monster Engine – Art (from Digg) – This guy apparently takes kid drawings and make the “cool” or as I would say coolify it. Pretty neat.

Tersumus eraser (from Digg) – The palm-size Tersumus eraser is shaped like the well-known key on a computer keyboard. Interestingly enough, I’ve never seen such a big “delete” key on any keyboard. Usually, they’re the default size on in the little island where my insert, home, end, page up, and page down keys are. My “backspace” key on the other hand does resemble that size.

How did the whole “Tooth Fairy” thing get started? (from Digg) – The Straight Dope tackled this topic back in 2004. According to their crack staff, “The tooth fairy as we now know her didn’t make an appearance until the early 1900s.” Her popularity may have hit the mainstream in 1949 when a popular children’s story by Lee Rogow was published.

Vista Ice Office (from Digg) – There appears to be a couple more here on this Russian site. From the Digg comments I also found these links: Windows Vista Week One Roundup and The Ice House That Gates Built. According to them:

So, about that giant ice house that Microsoft put up in Dundas Square: apparently 270,000 pounds of ice went into the construction of the 1,800 square foot structure, which includes a fully sculpted kitchen, dining room, study, living room, two bedrooms and bathroom all wired-up with televisions and computers (real, as opposed to of the ice variety) running demos of Vista and Office 2007. It’s lucky that the weather has finally decided to act wintery, because expensive electronics don’t tend to get along with melting slush.

The house is open to the public between 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. today through Saturday. Highlights include the working ice toilet paper holder, ice fire place, ice microwave, and the sweet ice stereo system. Bring mittens.

I remember watching some travel show at Derek’s house and they show this hotel made completely of ice (you even sleep on an ice bed) that is all year round. Crazy! I don’t remember the name of the hotel, but it’s somewhere in Canada.

Teton Fire (from Digg) – Brilliant morning color over the Teton Mountains from the west. 5xp hdr (I put the technique in a note below.) Wow! This is a really pretty photo. Would love it as a my wallpaper, but unfortunately, it’s not 1920×1200.

Table Hockey…On Real Ice (from Digg) – WiseGreek decided to build a mini hockey table using real ice to “see if the basic idea would work on real ice as opposed to using the air bearing principle.” Video after the jump. Pretty neat project.

Zelda Reorchestrated (from Digg) – ZREO stands for Zelda Reorchestrated. It is our goal to transcribe the musical masterpieces that you have heard in the greatest video game series ever created: The Legend of Zelda! Our goal is to give each and every song from The Legend of Zelda series a realistic and atmospheric sound with the quality that you would expect from such film composers as John Williams, Howard Shore, and James Horner. We don’t look to seek profit or fame. This is merely our own form of artistic expression that stems from The Legend of Zelda. If it weren’t for Zelda, ZREO wouldn’t exist. So we are grateful to have such a legendary video game series that can pull so much inspiration out of us. I’ve been listening to some of these Zelda songs on repeat. You can download them too if you want.

Tiny duckling has rare mutation: 4 legs – A rare mutation has left the eight-day-old duckling with two nearly full-sized legs behind the two he runs on. Nicky Janaway, a duck farmer in New Forest, Hampshire, 95 miles southwest of London, showed the duckling to reporters Saturday. Crazy! There’s so much mutations recently. Is it a sign that evolution will take it’s next big jump?

duck mutation with four (4) legs

February 18, 2007February 18, 2007

恭喜發財! My New TV!

恭喜發財! GONG HEY FAT CHOY! Happy Chinese New Year! Today marks the beginning of the new lunar calendar year. This year is the year of the pig.

So I was at Costco today getting some necessities (alright, they were more like goodies), when I decided to ask them about when my Vizio 47″ LCD HDTV would be coming in. After a quick lookup, they said they had already tried to call me, but apparently it was the wrong number. The guy who wrote down my cell number must’ve heard me say 675 instead of 679. I guess 5 and 9 do sound similar. So I could’ve been called a week ago since they’ve had stock for some time and I called in to give them my cell over a week ago. I even called back a few more times asking how much longer before it’s my turn, but each time while waiting for the supervisor (with the list), I get hung up. Anyways, they said it was available for me to purchase today.

At first I was planning to borrow Tekman’s van to carry this, but this was totally unprepared for. I decided, what the heck, Derek was able to fit it into his Civic, I should be able to fit it into mine. Unfortunately I didn’t calculate the fact that Derek also has a wife (or at least someone else who went with him to Silverdale). I pull down all the seats in my car and pack everything into the front, the box just won’t go in as I try to jam it. Guess I miscalculated the size of my trunk. Tekman lived all the way in Bothell and it’d suck to tell him to drive 40mi to Bellevue Costco to help me out.

Derek had to pull his out of the box, so I guess that was my next step. I open the box in the parking lot of Costco and start removing things. The TV was rather heavy and trying to be careful and lifting the damn thing didn’t really work out. I gave Derek a call, since he was only 15mins from this Costco asking for help. Derek comes of course and helps me load the TV into the trunk and then helps me carry it into my place.

I had made plans with CDMCC to watch Breach tonight, so I didn’t get a chance to play with it till I got home and it’s SWEET! My “basic” cable comes with a bunch of HD channels which I’m guessing is part of the “basic” package since they’re required by law (I believe) to include these channels. I then tested it with my Xbox 360 running at 1080p via component cables and tested a few games. Now I just need to get some cables from monoPrice and my HTPC is set to go!

Random Crap:

The cost of leaving your PC on (from Digg) – Between my server and my Windows Media Center home theater PC, I have at least two PCs on all the time at home. Have you ever wondered how much it’s costing you to leave a computer on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? … So leaving my server on is costing me $200 / year, or $16.68 per month. My home theater PC is a bit more frugal at 65 watts. Using the same formulas, that costs me $81 / year or $6.75 per month.

Man wins $25,000 lottery two days in row – An airline pilot from Maplewood won a $25,000 lottery jackpot — two days in a row. Raymond Snouffer Jr. matched the winning numbers 11-14-23-26-31 to win Saturday’s Northstar Cash drawing with odds of about 170,000 to 1, Minnesota Lottery officials said.

Why it’s gross to kiss your sister – Researchers who wanted to find out why it is not only taboo to kiss your sister, but also disgusting, said on Wednesday they have discovered why in a discovery that challenges some basic tenets of Freudian theory. … Spending time in the same household and watching your mother care for your brother or sister is all it takes. This is all subconscious, of course, reported the researchers, who worked with Debra Lieberman of the University of Hawaii. … “It should regulate both altruism and incest disgust.” … What determined incest disgust and altruism was the same — how much time an older sibling spent watching his or her mother care for a younger one, or how much time the two spent together in the same household.

Mega gallery: 07′ LEGO video game art (from Digg) – a bunch of video game pictures made of Legos including Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Someone From Work Left Today And His Goodbye E-Mail Was Hilarious… (from Derek) – Hilarious email. Apparently this was originally written by Chris Kula, but I wonder if someone really sent this.

February 17, 2007February 17, 2007

Ys – The Oath in Felghana

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

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

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

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

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

Random Crap:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 16, 2007

Cyanide and Happiness

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

Random Crap:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few interesting films (from MS newsgroup):

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

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

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

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

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

puppies adopted by cat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 9, 2007February 9, 2007

AllFreeCalls lives on!

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

Random Crap:

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

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

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

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

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

roto-rooter pimped out john

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 8, 2007February 8, 2007

Free Prizes for Playing the Xbox 360

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

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

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

Random Crap:

If Peter Griffin had a real daughter (from ApeChild)

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

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

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

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

The Eye of Sauron – Tesla Coils (from Tesla Downunder)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 6, 2007February 6, 2007

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.

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.

February 3, 2007February 4, 2007

5% Cash Back on American Express SimplyCash Business Card

I also saw this on Ben’s Bargains: American Express SimplyCash^SM 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.

February 3, 2007February 3, 2007

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.

February 2, 2007February 2, 2007

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.