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Happy Birthday to ME!

Sigh… One year older…

Speaking of which, due to the crazy weather, snow storms, and freezing temperature we’ve been having, check out this slideshow of crazy traffic and abandoned cars.

Derek also showed me this video: Bumper cars in Portland, Oregon. Crazy! Cars skidding and bumping everywhere, but instead of regular bumper cars, we’re talking 20-50K cars… That’s why on snow days, I work from home. Just need to make sure I stock up on food.

Random Crap:

Today’s Japanese phrase is 兎 (usagi) which means rabbit.

How to avoid crying when chopping onions (from SueOn) – apparently the part of the onion that makes you cry resides on the bottom cone.

How We Shower (from Digg) – Heres a funny comparison on showering practices between guys and girls. Funny and true! HOW MEN AND WOMEN SHOWER DIFFERENTLY… Rather funny read.

2006 Ice Storm – Follow Up Visit (from Digg) – Amazing when 2″ of ice forms on a wire from a power utility pole.

spacecoyote did some artwork on what would The Simpsons and Futurama characters would look like if they were drawn in anime style (from Digg). Titled The Simpsonzu and Futurama: Super Happy Fun Show (click images to enlarge), she landed herself a contract with Bongo Comics:

THANK YOU INTERNET

Long story short: Bongo Comics, Matt Groening’s comic book company, is hiring me to do the pencils for a short manga-style Simpsons comic. Also, I’ve been contacted by 20th Century Fox. They want me to do work for them somehow. I might get a job for the upcoming new Futurama series!

Why all this sudden success? Why are my childhood dreams coming true? This is madness, I tells ya! MADNESS!

EDIT: I don’t think all credit should go to just one website! My recognition is thanks to deviantART, Digg, Drawn, ABC News Australia, among many other websites and blogs. Not to mention word of mouth. Hence why I am thanking the Internet as a whole. 🙂

“Nurse” bleeds lonely hearts with flirty SMS – A Chinese company has duped about 400,000 people by creating the character of a young female nurse to solicit text messages and collect revenue from lonely men, a Chinese newspaper reported on Tuesday. … Yang said “Wang Jing” would ask mobile phone users flirty questions before luring them unwittingly into subscribing to the nurse’s chat for 10-30 yuan (65 pence-2 pounds) a month, the paper reported. Yang, who would receive up to 2,000 text messages from people all over China in a single shift, said the nurse scam had reaped hundreds of thousands of yuan a month, the paper reported.

Japan school to test applicants’ chopstick skills – As if reading, writing and arithmetic weren’t enough, one Japanese high school now also plans to include chopstick skills on its entrance exams. The Hisatagakuen Sasebo Girls’ High School in western Japan will require a 10 minute test using chopsticks to transfer beads, marbles, dice and beans from one plate to another. Haha. Sounds like a skill my dad would love to show off.

Ford, Microsoft team up on new dashboard OS – I didn’t find this article too interesting, but it reminded me of the joke back in the day:

IF CARS WERE BUILT LIKE PC’S

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, “If G.M. had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got one-thousand miles to the gallon.” In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating,

If G.M. had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

  • For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
  • Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
  • Occasionally, your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart, and drive on.
  • Occasionally, executing a manner such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
  • Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought “Car95” or “CarNT”, but then you would have to buy more seats.
  • Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.
  • The oil, water, temperature, and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single “general car default” warning light.
  • New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
  • The airbag system would say “Are you sure?” before going off.
  • Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
  • It would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a G.M. subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by fifty percent or more. Moreover, every time G.M. introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
  • You would press the “start” button to shut off the engine.

Have you seen Nepal? Not really, Peru says – Royal Nepal Airlines has apologised to Peru after mistakenly using a photo of the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu to promote tourism in Nepal.

Moms, kids arrested in R.I. school brawl – Two mothers and their 13-year-old daughters were arrested after police say one woman drove her already suspended daughter to school to fight a teenage rival. Haha.

Dracula’s castle is for sale for $78M – The Habsburg family said Wednesday that it wanted to sell a Transylvanian castle famous for its connections to the 15th century medieval ruler who inspired “Dracula” for 60 million euros, or $78 million, to the local authorities, an attorney said.

Disneyland – Club 33 (from Digg) – Apparently there’s a secret club at Disneyland and even Snopes.com claims its true: Club 33, open only to members and their guests, has been a part of New Orleans Square since 1967. Originally intended as a private facility where Walt Disney could entertain park sponsors and lessees, Club 33 did not open until several months after Disney’s death. The club’s facilities were made available to the public through limited memberships, and Club 33 has operated unobtrusively in Disneyland’s New Orleans Square ever since. However, it seems rather expensive to join…

CES 2007: HD DVD versus Blu-ray – The porn industry says HD DVD – Looks like we have our winner for the next gen video format war.

You’ve probably seen this picture around the net:
kevin carter - vulture

But do you know the story behind it? I was probably reading Digg and they mentioned this image and the photographer Kevin Carter. According to wikipedia:

The sound of soft, high-pitched whimpering near the village of Ayod attracted Carter to a young emaciated Sudanese toddler. The girl had stopped to rest while struggling to a feeding center, wherein a seemingly well-fed vulture had landed nearby. He said that he waited about 20 minutes, hoping that the vulture would spread its wings. It didn’t. Carter snapped the haunting photograph and chased the vulture away. However, he also came under heavy criticism for just photographing — and not helping — the girl:

“The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene.”

…

He later confided to friends that he wished he had intervened and helped the child. Journalists at the time were warned never to touch famine victims for fear of disease. … Portions of Carter’s suicide note read:

“I am depressed … without phone … money for rent … money for child support … money for debts … money!!! … I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners…I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky.”

Flash Element TD (from Digg) – another fun flash game where you build towers to blow up enemies. However, unlike others where you need to defend your castle, this one deducts a life for each the enemy passes the checkpoint. Somewhat hard to play given the fact you can’t get extra lives (if you could, I didn’t figure out how).

Bee Movie teaser – was going through the new movie trailers and saw this hilarious teaser with Jerry Seinfeld with others playing insects on a car windshield.

The Mac (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) (from Digg) – a music video by Setty Smooth. Welcome to the world of Setty Smooth – where his quest to find love leads him on the most extraordinary of journeys . In this episode, Setty Smooth guides five fine ladies through an intimate video chat session, a little something he likes to call “cyber love”. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride as Setty drops his first single and video, “The Mac” from his unreleased debut love ballads album.

Sand sculptures in Lommel (from Digg) – tons of rather neat sand sculptures.

LEGO church (from Digg) – Lego creations continue to amaze us. TN4046 has sent this gallery of a … church, created entirely with LEGO bricks.

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Electric Orange

As you may have known, I’m not a big fan of ING Direct after what they pulled last time. However they’ve introduced a new account called Orange Electric, which is probably the best I’ve seen in the current market. It’s basically a checking account with high interest rates, although not as high as the savings accounts.

From their press release:

The expansion, which Kuhlmann termed “audacious,” comes as the bank plans to offer high-yield online checking accounts amid intensifying competition. ING DIRECT will make the checking accounts, dubbed “Electric Orange,” available nationally Feb. 1. It plans a limited introduction next month, making checking available to 400,000 of its most active customers – ones who make frequent deposits and withdrawals in their online savings accounts. Kuhlmann said he hopes that in Electric Orange’s first year, half a million customers will sign up.

You won’t find information regarding Electric Orange on their open an account page just yet. It’ll be available in Feb. 1, 2007. You have to be “special” to be able to sign up right now. Until now, I didn’t even know I was “special”. Anyway, I applaud ING Direct for finally doing something right.

I’ve always wondered why checking accounts have little to no interest, when savings accounts can have such high interest rates. The only difference I can see is that there’s limited number of withdrawals and transfers for savings accounts and checking accounts are allowed to be linked with external sources. I don’t think ING Direct provides checks for these checking accounts, but you get a routing number and you can use it to pay bills. You can also have them write checks out for you.

The current interest rates for ING Direct checking is:

If your balance is:
$0-$49,999.99 – 2.96% APR / 3.00% APY
$50,000.00-$99,999.99 – 4.94% APR / 5.05% APY
$100,000.00 or more – 5.18% APR / 5.30% APY

Do note, it’s the same interest rate for your entire balance. Not tiered off like what many banks do. I quote: For example, if your balance is $55,000, you earn a great 5.05% APY on the entire balance.

Personally, I don’t see myself having over $50k inside a checking or even savings account. If I have that much, I’d rather invest it, but even at 3%, it’s much better than my 0% at Bank of America. In fact, it’s infinitely many times better. ;p Since I keep about 2x my monthly mortgage payments in there, that’s an extra $150 every year. Not bad.

However, the coolest part is that transfers between your ING savings account and ING checking account are instantaneous, which I’ve confirmed with an ING customer service rep. That means you can keep all your money in the higher 4.5% APY interest rate account and only transfer the amount you need into your checking at 3% APY. I was planning to do this with HSBC, where I have all my money in the 5.05% APY savings account, and when I needed it, transfer it instantaneously into my HSBC checking account. However, I didn’t ever really get enough motivation to open a new checking account with HSBC, since there was no other benefit that I could see. So I’ve been sticking with the 3 day transfers from HSBC to Bank of America for awhile, and never really had much problems with it. I actually think transfers between HSBC and Bank of America has shortened to between 1 and 2 days, though I’m not certain. The last few times I initiated a transfer occurred rather quickly.

They do have ATM support. I should be receiving my debit card sometime soon, though I hardly ever think I’d need to withdraw money from those accounts. I’ll still keep aside some cash inside my Bank of America account just for cash withdrawal purposes.

Anyway, I hope to start seeing more high interest rate checking accounts now that ING Direct has started to lead the way. I’ve already reconfigured all my credit cards and mortgage payments to withdraw from this new account, so everything’s pretty much set. If you want to open a ING Direct account and want a referral to start with a $25 bonus, feel free to email me your first and last name and your email address to ingreferral@krunk4ever.com leave a comment and I’ll get back to you asap. I’ve already blocked the email address as it was starting to get spammed.

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Upgraded to WordPress 2.0.7

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.0.7. You can download the latest version here. I’ve been due an update for quite sometime. Given all the security fixes they’ve had since 2.0.1, I guess I’ve been lucky my site hasn’t been hacked yet. If you need help upgrading WordPress, please follow the instructions from: Upgrading WordPress.

First thing you should always do is backup everything, including your database and your files. Since I’ve modified a few things outside the wp-content area, I was lucky to have backups of previous files to figure what changes I made.

If anyone notices any problem with the site, please let me know. Thanks!

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The Consumerist

Decided to move this block here as I felt it deserved its own entry.

I’ve been an avid reader of a new blog: The Consumerist. They have a lot of interesting stories regarding the consumer, what we should now to protect ourselves and how we can fight back giant corporations. Often times, consumers like us don’t know what laws protect us and are bullied by the giants into accepting whatever they say. Interesting stories and helpful hints.

Speaking of which, I was at Costco this weekend. It’s been my 1st time to Costco since the blackout (well, Christmas Vacation came along, and last week there weren’t any coupons plus the roads weren’t exactly in good driving condition). Anyway, I was reading their entries on Skin Care: All You Need Is Soap and Sunscreen and Save Money By Exfoliating With Baking Soda. Guess what? Costco has $4 off coupons for Cetaphil. Though I will admit that I was surprised to find out it was $16.46 for 2 bottles, but I decided to pick up one making it $12.46 for 2 just to see what it is. The coupon makes it $12.46 for Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser, 16-Ounce Bottles (Pack of 2) or Cetaphil Fragrance Free Moisturizing Lotion, 16-Ounce Bottles (Pack of 2), a total of 32oz with a limit of 6 per customer (12 bottles). I don’t really know what exfoliating is, but it sounds like a facial. Now all I need is some baking soda.

Some other interesting entries include:

Another interesting article by them which I decided needed more than just 1 liner is: Free International Phone Calls By Calling Iowa. Services like AllFreeCalls.net have been popping up everywhere. Iowa for once is the leading the game. Due to a new law, telephone companies will receive money for every incoming call. Companies are taking advantage of this and by providing you free international calling over VoIP, they are actually making money. Check out the list of countries that you can call for free. Most people can take advantage of this through their unlimited nights and weekends on their cell phone. If you’re part T-Mobile’s myFaves plan, then you can set this number as one of your favorites. I suggested on the MS newsgroup today that if you really want to take advantage of this, you should sign up for SkypeOut which is currently $15 for the 1st year with unlimited outgoing calls to any phone number in the United States and Canada. If you sign up past 1/31/2007, the price will jump to $30 for the 1st year.

Another similar free international phone service is Free Call Planet.

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Staying with the same mobile phone carrier?

I’m currently on a family plan with T-Mobile. Each year, our yearly contract ends and my father signs up with a new contract (usually with a different member of the family, since you have to be a non-customer for over 60 days or something to take advantage of the new customer deals). We tend to stick with T-Mobile because it generally has the best cell phone plans for family. We don’t bother trying to haggle with customer service, as renewing a contract never really ever has the same perks of signing up for a new contract. I’ve complained about this numerous times, and even blogged about it. I hardly use my cell phone, given that I don’t have a girlfriend/wife or kids. I get the seldom call from my parents, which I’ve trained them to call my VoIP phone number instead, and sometimes use it to call some friends or co-workers. Once in awhile, I have an emergency for it, but overall I probably use at most 200 minutes a month. I don’t care about internet connectivity or getting email on my cell phone.

Anyway, that time is coming up and the worse part of all this is that if we stick with T-Mobile, we will all get new numbers and I have to tell everyone what my new number is. Sometimes I miss a few people, and they get mad at me. Anyway, I now there’s that law that allows you to port your cell number to a different carrier, but nothing that really says much about keeping your cell number with the same mobile phone carrier.

A few years back, I thought about this scheme, but didn’t really research much into it. I was thinking, I can port my number to a temporary mobile phone carrier, and then immediately port it back to whatever company that I wanted. I mean if I was a small mobile phone carrier, I can make money off this by charging a service fee of lets say $35 + any additional charges to get it to work. Ungsunghero then suggested instead I could just sign up for some random plan and I have 30 days to cancel it if I don’t like it, even if I sign up for a 1 year contract.

I emailed MyRatePlan, asking:

I understand how number porting works. I was wondering if there’s an median service which I could port my number to and then port my number back onto a different plan.

For example, let’s say I’m a Verizon customer. My contract has ended and I want to take advantage of a new contract. The only problem is that number portability doesn’t work within the same carrier.

Is it possible to port my number to say a small carrier which provides the service of temporarily holding cell numbers and the port it back to Verizon on my new contract.

If that is possible, does such carriers exist today? If so, would you please kindly tell me about them.

Thank you.

Their reply was short and to the point:

Thanks for writing. Creative idea, but it won’t work. Even if you ported to a prepaid carrier (ie, one with no contract) then tried to port back, you would get flagged as an existing customer for about 6 months and your application would be rejected.

Verizon does offer some discounts on phones to those that renew their contract. Not as much as for new customers, but if you want to stay with them and keep your number as well as get a new phone, that is probably your best option.

Ungsunghero confirmed that there was a 6 month period where the mobile phone carrier is allowed to not take back the number that was ported away from it. Darn. All that scheming gone to waste. Ungsunghero suggested that I should just sign up for a new plan on a different carrier on my own, but that’s really not the point here. Let’s say I switch to Verizon or Cingular or even Sprint PCS, a year later when the contract expires, that means I have to once again switch to another carrier even if I liked the service I’ve been getting. Oh well.

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BitTyrant

“BitTyrant” promises faster downloads at the expense of the whole – Everyone loves to get something for nothing, but there is usually a hidden cost associated with any promise of gain without effort. Such is the case with a new BitTorrent client called BitTyrant, whose authors claim will increase download speeds by an average of 70 percent over standard BT clients.

This is a selfish bittorrent client, but not selfish in the way meaning it won’t upload. BitTorrent has always been about sharing, but by being selective who you share with, you can find peers who “share faster”. Many people disregard this as a cheat for bittorrent, but I would actually like to see the statistics. Being selfish doesn’t mean you won’t share just as much. In fact, I can see being selfish (but uploading just as much) having an overall positive effect to the system. So instead of people connecting across the world to find peers, peers will hopefully be around the same proximity, giving an overall speed increase. Also, by being selfish, the number of seeds will increase rather quickly, providing more traffic later on in the game. Of course the world’s not perfect and there are people who stop uploading immediately after the transfer is done, but I’d really like to see the statistics on how the system.

I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but if you have, I’d like to hear how it has been for you. Do you notice a general speed increase? How does it compare to other clients such as uTorrent, BitComet, and Azureus?

Random Crap:

Today’s Japanese phrase is 歴史 (rekishi) – history. Nothing to specially about this phrase. I just heard it on Kanon and it sounded very familiar to the Chinese counterpart, which made me take notice to this word. At first I kept hearing rikshi, but I knew that wasn’t possible in Japanese. So I tried all the permutations: rikishi, rikeshi, etc. Finally had to listening to it carefully a few times before I determined it was an ‘e’ instead of an ‘i’.

Looking To Establish Enthusiast Credibility, Toyota Previews FT-HS Concept (from Digg) – Toyota appears hell bent on re-establishing its credibility among enthusiasts. With the euthanizing of the Supra and MR2, there’s been little in the automotive juggernaut’s stable to quicken the pulse, but recent announcements like Lexus’ forthcoming “F” lineup should help reinvigorate the brand with driving aficionados. As should the FT-HS Hybrid Sports Concept previewed here. This car looks sweet! Plus it’s a Hybrid!

NETS MADE BY SPIDERS FED ON DRUG-DOSED FLIES (from RayAlome) – These spiderwebs are woven by spiders on drugs such as LSD, msecaline, hashish, and caffeine. The caffeine one looks the worse, but apparently caffeine is a pesticide.

50 Reasons – why its great to be a Guy!! (from Digg) – Here’s a few I liked and found funny include:

  • Your bathroom lines are 80 percent shorter.
  • You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
  • You can be showered and ready in 10 minutes.
  • Wedding plans take care of themselves.
  • You can be president.
  • Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
  • If something mechanical didn’t work, you can bash it with a hammer and throw it across the room.

Calf with two faces born at Va. farm – One of the newest arrivals at Kirk Heldreth’s dairy farm is drawing crowds. A calf with two faces was born Dec. 27 at Heldreth Dairy Farm, and word has spread in southwest Virginia as residents flock to his farm. Are mutations occurring everywhere nowadays? Or is it just being reported more?

Air Hockey (from Digg) – a fun little flash game. A bit difficult to control though, or maybe I just suck.

Samorost2 (from Digg) – I saw my brother playing this over winter break and it looked mildly fun. It’s one of those where you click random objects to advance to the next page. Sometimes you have to click on them in a particular order. A fun little short flash game.

Brainiac – Crane Game (from Geiger) – this video shows you how to beat the claw game. Apparently each crane has 2 settings, how many losses before a win and how strong the grip is. Interesting watch. I’d like to see it perform in person.

Japanese put their New Year resolutions in ink – I just wanted to point out that little girl’s calligraphy is amazingly good.

NowNow (from Digg) – a new service by Amazon.com where you ask it a question and real people will help you research for the solution and within 24 hours, you should will get up to 3 replies back. Pretty nifty. It currently requires an invite to try it out. If you’ve gotten an invite and have tried out the system, I’d like to hear your feedback.

Inventor of instant noodles dies at 96 (from RayAlome) – Momofuku Ando, the Japanese inventor of instant noodles — a dish that has sustained American college students for decades — has died. He was 96. My favorite instant noodles is still Nissin’s 出前一丁, which apparently is the company he founded. Favorite flavor is the original: sesame seed. Many people miscall instant noodles as ramen as they’re not the same thing. It can be called instant ramen. Calling instant ramen as ramen is like calling instant coffee as coffee.

Price Protectr (from Digg) – Ever buy stuff from stores that offer a 30 day price protection guarantee? If they lower their price within 30 days of when you purchased it, they’ll refund you the difference. Sounds great… except how often do you remember to the check price again? Now you don’t have to. Let Price Protectr do it for you! It’s free. It’s easy. It’s free and easy money. How often do you get that offer? A very useful service. I’ve used Refund Please and Amazon Price Drop Tracker and they’re quite useful. Amazon.com’s price drop policy is actually very easy to utilize. If within 30 days of your purchase, if Amazon.com drops the price on the item, you’re entitled for a refund of the difference. All it takes it just a short form to fill out. I wonder why they just don’t automatically refund you the amount. I guess that’d be asking too much. The stores that this new service supports include: Amazon, Backcountry.com, Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, Future Shop, Jenson USA, Office Max, Sears, or Target.

Water Cooling Computers With A Swimming Pool (from Digg) – An interesting project where he pumps in water from his swimming pool to cool his system. He says there’s really not much to worry about the chlorinated water, but I still have a weird feeling about it. Plus the fact there’s also a bunch of other junk in the swimming pool.

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Aim Ad Hack 5.2

I finally installed Aim Ad Hack 5.2 on my machine at home. I TS into that machine and use AIM as the file transfer utility. However, because AIM has an animated gif for the ad, it really lags when the AIM buddylist is not minimized. So I finally got pissed enough, I decided to give Aim Ad Hack a try. To my surprise, this is an all in one deal. You don’t even need to install AIM 6.0 separately. It’ll even download the correct version of AIM that it supports for you.

Along with ad disabling, there’s also the removal of the other crap like Viewpoint player, AOL Desktop, etc. There’s also these 2 plugins that it comes with. Some location plugin and some facebook plugin. At first it seems somewhat neat, but the fact that I have to login manually into facebook every time I sign onto AIM was rather tedious. Same with the location plugin where it forced you to select a location every time you signed in. The facebook plugin does have its function. Whenever someone updates their profile or when someone writes on their wall, you get this little notification box.

All in all, it was a pleasant experience installing Aim Ad Hack.

Random Crap:

I’d like to apologize beforehand if I credit the incorrect source. I have random crap queued up since Christmas and am barely rolling it out.

Japanese word of the day: 縫いぐるみ or 縫い包み (nuigurumi) – stuffed animal or plush toy. I was watching Kanon and Sayuri got a big stuffed ant-eater for Mai’s birthday. At first I though she said muigurumi or muigumi, but JDIC didn’t have anything that sounded like that. I finally tried searching in the opposite direction and searched for the word ‘plush’ and got nuigurumi instead. Here’s how you say you want a plushy: 縫いぐるみがほしい (nuigurumi ga hoshii). If you haven’t figured out yet, sticking “ga hoshii” after a noun means you want it (i.e. aisu curi-mu ga hoshii = I want ice cream)

Parasite ‘turns women into sex kittens’ (from Digg) – A COMMON parasite can increase a women’s attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid, an Australian researcher says.

Consumerist.com chunk moved to new entry.

I was found UserFriendly comic strip rather funny and wanted to share it.

Q: What do you call someone who blogs a few days and never blogs again, filling the web with dreck?
A: Since the internet is a bunch of tubes, may I suggest the term “clogger”.

PlayStation 3 kiosks freezing up … on purpose! (from Digg) – I love this response:

“So dude over there,” I said pointing to the busy clerk, “says he keeps the kiosk off because it keeps freezing up.”
“Nope. No it doesn’t.”
“Well, actually, yeah. It does. I’ve seen it happen myself.”
“No. It doesn’t. We did that on purpose,” he said.
“You make the entire console lock up on purpose because … why?”
“We do that so that people won’t play it all day long,” he explained. “Specifically during Motorstorm, we made it freeze up a lot.“

A real Christmas story – A Hong Kong schoolboy who died in a traffic accident has brought festive hope to at least seven other patients through the rare mass donation of a large number of his vital organs. Fourteen-year-old Miu Chi-ho died from brain injuries after being hit by a bus several days ago, but doctors were able to save the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, skin, bones and corneas of the healthy and athletic teen-ager. “There were at least seven recipients of the organs,” said a spokeswoman with Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority.

Prizes for prostitute-free New Year – The South Korean government is handing out gifts for office workers who promise not to visit brothels this holiday season.

A tale of two cities for confused tourist – A 21-year-old German tourist who wanted to visit his girlfriend in the Australian metropolis Sydney landed 13,000 kilometres away near Sidney, Montana, after mistyping his destination on a flight booking Web site. Ouch!

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天行者 (Heavenly Mission)

This movie had a lot of potential. A step away from the clichés of common Hong Kong Triad movies, but the movie ended in a very weird state, one that I couldn’t really comprehend. It also left many unanswered questions and there were actions with no reason. I originally was going to rate it as high as an 8, but dropped it back down to 6 when the movie ended in limbo.

IMDb: 5.8/10 (27 votes)
LoveHKFilm
LoveAsianFilm
Trailer
MY RATING: 6/10

heavenly mission poster

Spoilers: (Show)

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This Film Is Not Yet Rated

An interesting and decent documentary and I applaud him for his research, but his main quest throughout the movie wasn’t exactly exciting. This movie is about the MPAA and how they review movies and gives them ratings (i.e. R, PG13, etc). They have a bunch of good research and insight and how wrong our system is.

Official Site
IMDb: 7.9/10 (751 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B / Yahoo! Users:B-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 83% / Average Rating: 7.2/10
IFC Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
MY RATING: 6.5/10

Due to the fact that the movie posters are NOT WORK SAFE, I’ll only be posting links:
This Film Is Not Yet Rated Poster 1
This Film Is Not Yet Rated Poster 2

Spoilers: (Show)

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Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)

A very very beautiful movie. It talks about the time after WWII where Germany was split between the East and West. The party that was ruling East Germany was known as the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik or German Democratic Republic). They themselves had their form of NSA or KGB. This movie will tell you the story of a watcher and the person being watched.

Official Site
IMDb: 8.6/10 (2,039 votes)
Yahoo! Movies
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 94% / Average Rating: 8.2/10
Apple Trailer
MY RATING: 8.5/10

the lives of others poster

Spoilers: (Show)