Another free song I had gotten from iTMS awhile ago that I really liked was: Hard Fi – Cash Machine

I just wanted to share with you the 2 music videos for this song:

Music Video 1
Music Video 2

I actually saw a video of them performing this song live, and was surprised and somewhat disappointed on how different they sound live. The tune is still catchy, but it just didn’t resemble the original song much at all when it hit chorus. It seems like a bunch of instruments were missing or somethings aren’t being synthensized. I also found the instrument that the lead singer using really interesting. What is that thing called? The keyboard where you blow into?

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Random Crap:

Murder suspect: Goat turned into corpse – A Nigerian murder suspect accused of killing his brother with an axe told police investigators he actually attacked a goat, which was only later magically transformed into his sibling’s corpse, officials said Thursday. … Murder suspects in Nigeria, where many people believe in black magic, sometimes claim spirits tricked them into killing. In 2001, eight people were burned to death after one person in their group was accused of making a bystander’s penis magically disappear. I couldn’t stop laughing when reading that last sentence.

FDA: E. coli linked to Natural Selection Foods (from Cari; sorry Decathanerd, she was first) – The FDA warned people nationwide not to eat spinach. Washing won’t get rid of the bacteria, though thorough cooking can kill it. Just a warning for those who do eat spinach. I guess it’s time for me to stop buying bagged spinach at Safeway.

The 25 Worst Web Sites (from /.) – From unforgettable flame-outs to some of the most popular destinations around, no one is safe from our look at the world’s dumbest dot-coms and silliest sites. The list:

Complete List of the 25 Worst Web Sites

• 25. Rentmychest.com
• 24. IKissYou.org
• 23. InmatesForYou.com
• 22. Digital entertainment network (den.com)
• 21. Golden Palace Casino
  They’re the one that wins auctiosn of random crap that looks like Holy Mary.
• 20. Hotmail.com
  Yep, they were horrible. Hopefully Windows Live Mail will be able to compete against GMail and Yahoo! Mail.
• 19. WebVan
• 18. Beenz.com and Flooz.com (tie)
  Haha. I always thought it was dumb to buy these fake money. Then again, I find it horribly stupid to ever buy gift certificates.
• 17. Boo.com
• 16. Microsoft Windows Update
  I’m not sure why this is on this list, and it’s not the fact that I work for Microsoft. It’s layout might not be that great, but it’s still a reliable and needed service.
• 15. Neuticles.com
• 14. BidForSurgery.com
• 13. Whitehouse.com
  Haha. I remember I was tricked to go here.
• 12. The Dancing Baby
• 11. Rabies for Kids
• 10. MyLackey.com.
• 9. HamsterDance.com
• 8. BonziBuddy
• 7. Pets.com
• 6. Pixelon.com
• 5. AllAdvantage
  Now what’s wrong with this site? I made almost $1000 off this!
• 4. CD Universe
• 3. Cartoonnetwok.com
• 2. CyberRebate
  Ah, the infamous, get everything free!
• 1. MySpace.com
  I agree 100%, MySpace is the worst!

Mayor’s offer to film movie backfires – When moviemakers told Gallatin, Tennessee, Mayor Don Wright they wanted to use his office to film a scene with a superheroine, he kindly obliged. But Wright was startled when the movie’s title, “Thong Girl 3,” and his role in its making was splashed across the front page of Friday’s editions of the Nashville Tennessean newspaper. I think they just made this film famous: Thong Girl! (no nudity, but still probably not work safe)

The All-new Yahoo! Mail Beta (from Ars) – You’ve been hearing about Yahoo! Mail Beta for quite some time, touting ajax support and really neat features and the beta’s finally open to public. It’s actually really neat and I spent some time playing with it and I might even say better than GMail!

Sunday Bloody Sunday By Bush (from Cari) – I heard the audio of this a while ago on Opie & Anthony’s XM Sattellite show but I’ve never actually seen the video to go with it. Someone has taken words from thousands of Bush speeches and mashed them together so he actually sings U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday. Really creative and must have taken forever to create. This was hilarious! Music’s actually somewhat catchy.

AMD LIVE! Media Vault (from SD) – I had mentioned about Mozy a few days back, but it seems there’s more contenders entering the arena. This new service will be giving away 25GB of free storage. There are quite a few restrictions though. First, you’re only allowed to download 1GB/month (unlimited upload up to your cap). I’m okay with this since I would only use it to backup and won’t need to download much. If you want to share a file, the free account only allows you to share files upto 25MB, but you can backup files of any size it appears. It doesn’t mention how it goes about making your data secure/encrypted, so I’m guessing there is none. I haven’t played with their software, but I wonder how it compares with the Mozy client which I find pretty neat with all the preconfigured defaults and the ease of use.

Muppet Babies – Someone on the MS newsgroup forward a clip of Beaker singing Feelings and this got me nostalgic of finding Muppet Babies clips on YouTube. Muppet Babies were so cute! And then I find this clip, where they use REAL Muppets instead of animation. They’re so cute!!!

It appears one of my previous posts were marked as PRIVATE. I’ve made it public now: Saber Marionette J to X Episodes 9 – 26. It’s been so long since I posted any anime reviews. Haha… Current series I’m watching include:

• Zero no Tsukaima
• Blood+
• Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
• Detective Conan
• Hellsing Ultimate OVA

Boy gets handcuffed to stuffed reindeer – Just to make sure the animal didn’t run, or fly, away, the child attached one end of the toy handcuffs to his own wrist. And that meant the family had to call the real police Wednesday. … “I might ask Santa Claus to get me a police key for Christmas,” Kevon said when it was all over. Claus might bring it too, but perhaps only on the condition no reindeer are again shackled. I just find it hilarious that brute force wasn’t able to work on a toy handcuff. Finally a hairpin and lock picking saves the day.

Widow rented rotary phone for 42 years – – A widow rented a rotary dial telephone for 42 years, paying what her family calculates as more than $14,000 for a now outdated phone. … Until two months ago, Strogen was still paying AT&T to use the phones — $29.10 a month. Strogen’s granddaughters, Melissa Howell and Barb Gordon, ended the arrangement when they discovered the bills. Ouch! $30/month on a phone. Isn’t that enough to buy a decent phone nowadays. If not, you’d certainly get a really good phone in just half a year!

My Animated World (from Kira) – This Stop Motion Animation takes you into another world. In this world no physical laws count. The only laws that count are the laws of the Animator. I animated myself through my house and the city of Breda, the Netherlands. It took me 6 months to complete. That is mainly because of the weather. It wasn’t always suitable to shoot my scenes. The song I used is called Chinois by DJ Aphrodite and can be found on the record Aftershock. Enjoy! I would like to know what you think about it. Rather interesting video. Must’ve taken him forever.

Coming Zune – have you seen the new marketing strategy for the Zune? I found the opening commercial hilarious, yet the burning bird was a bit sad. Although Derek did point out the fact that it’s probably meant that one bird sent another music wireless and now it’s on fire! Literally. The other ad they have showing the tiny man petting the rabbit was cute too. On the site itself, they’re allowing you download the 32 second bird clip if you want.

Apple just released a whole slew of new stuff. Have you seen the new iPod nano (now in 5 colors and with 24hr of battery life) or the new iPod shuffle (which no longer resembles a pack of gum; it’s basically just a clip!). They’re even coming out with iTV (suppose to be released Q1 2007) and this will compete directly with Microsoft’s Media Center.

Anyway, they also have a new iTunes and it’s actually a pretty nice upgrade. I believe they reimplemented their searching/indexing algorithm, and now searching songs is a lot faster. They finally broke up the library into Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Audiobooks, and Radio, instead of lumping everything into your main Library. They also have new views of how to see your music (with album cover along side).

The iTMS (iTunes Music Store) also got revamped, though the free music section has moved away from the front page into the music subcategory (which once in awhile has a good song, like last week’s Sugarcult – Los Angeles). Still waiting for the music video.

Anyway, I was at work today and apparently iTunes won’t load through TS (Terminal Service) or you may call it RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol). It threw up an error box stating The iTunes application could not be opened. An unknown error occurred (0x666D743F). Apparently I’m not the only one: failed upgrade to 7.0 on windows xp

This apparently has to deal with the fact that iTunes now checks and verifies your soundcard and if it doesn’t like, it won’t load. I’m guessing this is to prevent cracking the DRM, but just a few hours after iTunes 7 was launched, a new edition of QTFairUse6 was released: QTFairUse6 2.3

There doesn’t seem to be a fix for this yet, but if anyone hears about a way to bypass this and get iTunes working on TS/RDP, please let me know. For now, I’ve been falling back to using WinAmp.

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Random Crap:

September 11, 2001: What We Saw (from BitTorrent)

5 years ago today, we watched and filmed the attack on the WTC out of the window of home, 36 floors up and 600 years away from the North Tower. Releasing this tape was a difficult decision for us because of its emotional and personal nature, and the potential for misuse. We feel, however, that our unique perspective has an important historical value, and shows the horror of the day without soundtracks or hype often in other accounts. Please be respectful of the contents of this account and be aware some may find the scenes on this video very disturbing. Please share only in its entirety.

We chose Revver to distribute our video because of its artist-friendly licensing terms and support for the Creative Commons.

Bob and Bri
9/11/2006

Professor gives students the option of purchasing his lectures online (from /.) – Robert Schrag records Communication 250 classes and offers them to students online for $2.50. The professor in the Department of Communication sent his students an e-mail Sept. 7 notifying them that lectures from their 75-minute communication and technology class were available online for $2.50 each. The Web site allows students to “buy now” and hear the lecture, in an MP3 format, as often as they like. I’m actually in favor of this. This would force students to actually attend class, as the backup would require money out of their pockets. On the other hand, when you do really need it to review or because you missed class due to something else more important, you have the option to obtain it.

Drivers give helmeted cyclists less room? – Motorists give greater leeway to cyclists who do not wear safety helmets, according to a study by a academic in Britain who was hit by traffic twice as he rode his bike to carry out his research.

Electric man electrocuted – A Vietnamese man who once appeared on national television to demonstrate his ability to resist electric shocks has been electrocuted while repairing a generator, an official said Tuesday. Irony, just like Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter.

China paper suspends cartoonist for drawing Hu crying – – A newspaper in southern China has suspended a cartoonist after he drew a weeping Chinese President Hu Jintao, a Hong Kong newspaper reported on Thursday. Sigh… You can’t draw cartoons of your political leader?

Dad breaks leg trying to cure phobia – It seems a father’s plan to cure his daughter’s fear of heights fell short. Troy Stewart and his 10-year-old daughter were on their daily bike ride about 7:45 p.m. Monday when Stewart, 31, suggested they jump off a 15 foot bridge. Stewart held his daughter Meagan Stewart’s hand as they jumped off the bridge into the Intracoastal Waterway, authorities said. Reminds me of that saying, where you listen to everything I tell you to do. If I ask you to jump of a bridge, will you do it? In this case, literally, YES.

ATM reprogrammed to deliver more cash – Surveillance footage shows a man walking into the gas station at 6:17 p.m. on Aug. 19, swiping an ATM card and punching in a series of numbers, breaking the machine’s security code. The automated teller machine was reprogrammed to disburse $20 bills but record it was a $5 debit to his account, Virginia Beach Police spokeswoman Rene Ball said.

All charges dropped in penis pump case – She explained earlier that her client was embarrassed to explain the object to the security guard in front of his mother, who was traveling with him — so he whispered. The guard misunderstood, and thought he had said “bomb,” O’Neill-Burke said. The attorney added that Amin, an Iraqi, has a thick accent and she herself had trouble understanding him until he brought the pump to her office. She said she recently learned Arabic speakers sometimes have trouble distinguishing “p” and “b” sounds. So DeadLock was close when he said he thought he said ‘bong’, but turns out he meant to say pump, and when p’s can sound like b’s, you can see how pump = bumb = bomb.

Callous cabbies force roadside birth in China – A Chinese woman was forced to give birth on a roadside earlier this month after a dozen taxi drivers refused to take her to a hospital just 300 metres away, local media reported on Wednesday. … But when Wang went into labour and started moaning, the driver stopped the car at a traffic light and dragged the husband out, shouting “Don’t deliver the baby in my car, or I’ll have very bad luck throughout the year!”. “Wang had to crouch on the roadside under the scorching sun and the husband tried to hail another taxi, but none of the 11 passing by stopped,” the report said. Such a sad story… They would rather be superstitious than to easily aid someone in the need of help or as the Chinese say: 見死不救

Colombia gang wives call sex strike against crime – They are calling it the “crossed legs” strike. I was just watching the new Comedy Central: Stand-Up podcast and this guy comes and says:

Chris Porter:

Ladies, you control the world.
You do. You can do whatever you want to with this planet.
If you want to lower gas prices, that’s up to you.
Seriously, you just got to start having sex with guys that ride the bus.
Follow me.
Nobody rides the bus now unless they have to. Why is that?
Cause nobody has sex with the bus rider, that’s why.
Can’t get laid riding the bus. Can’t even get laid in a car that gets good gas mileage.
No one’s having sex with the guy in a Neon, you know?
Drive around in your Cavaliers. See what kind of tail you pick up in that wagon.
What do girls like? Girls like SUVs, Hummers, Escalades, ???
If you’re getting better than 18 miles a gallon, and nobody’s having sex with you, that’s the problem.
If girls would start having sex with guys who ride the bus, we’d all start riding the bus.
And if we’re all riding the bus, we’re all riding in one car.
And if we’re all riding in one car, we’re using less gas.
By the law of supply and demand, if we’re using less, the price goes down.
So ladies, next time you’re at the pump, paying $3.20 a gallon, remember, it’s your *BEEP*ing fault.

Speaking of which, if anyone is watching the Comedy Central: Stand-Up podcasts, on 8/31/2006’s Comedy Central Live at Gotham: Kristen Schaal, when she speaks in Mandarin, what the heck is she saying? I could make out probably the 1st 2 words: 想你 FAN POIN KAI? (Mandarin for just kidding?!?!)

Slo-Mo Home Depot (from Hedonistica) – another great plan by Improv Everywhere, where they first go in slow motion, then normal again, and then FREEZE!

Panda sneeze shocker (from Hedonistica) – 親パンダが子パンダの 「くしゃみ」で驚く映 像. A baby panda sneezes and scares the bejesus (for some reason I always thought that was spelled bejeesus) out of the mom (or is the dad?). Very cute though.

Xinhua issues Measures for Administering the Release of News and Information in China by Foreign News Agencies (from /.) –

The Measures state that news and information released in China by foreign news agencies shall not contain any of the following that serves to:

• violate the basic principles enshrined in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China;
• undermine China’s national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity;
• endanger China’s national security, reputation and interests;
• violate China’s religious policies or preach evil cults or superstition;
• incite hatred and discrimination among ethnic groups, undermine their unity, infringe upon their customs and habits, or hurt their feelings;
• spread false information, disrupt China’s economic and social order, or undermine China’s social stability;
• propagate obscenity and violence, or abet crimes;
• humiliate or slander another person, or infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of another person;
• undermine social ethics or the fine cultural traditions of the Chinese nation;
• include other content banned by Chinese laws and administrative regulations.

Sigh… That last line basically gives them full control of the media (not like they don’t already), but now they’re coming out and explicitly stating so.

The Best Time to Buy Everything (from Derek) – very interesting/informative article telling you when the best time to buy things are, ranging from airline tickets to clothing to cars to electronics: AT 50 CENTS a roll — instead of the regular retail price of $4 — buying wrapping paper after New Year’s is an easy way to save. The same holds true for buying half-price inflatable pool loungers and patio furniture after Labor Day weekend. In fact, bargain lovers know that there’s a smart time to buy just about anything. For example, those looking for a great deal on a car should shop on weekday mornings in September. Groceries are cheapest on Sunday evenings. We talked to the experts, and found the best time to buy everything from wine to wedding dresses.