Because Life's Too Boring

...to miss browsing sites like this.

Wait a while for the animation to load, then once you get tired of it, click the hash-bang (#!) in the upper-left corner and navigate to another one (04 or 05, then pick a dir and wait again for an animation to load).

A great way to kill an afternoon. Post your favorites in the comments below. WARNING: Turn your sound down or risk annoying everyone around you.

Woot! Indy gets a Fry's!

After what seems like a year of construction, the mystery of what the somewhat infamous 9820 Kinkaid Drive is to become has been revealed:

The site of the old Incredible Universe (and briefly, Auto Nation) is destined to once again be an electronics superstore. (Not that I need any additional outlets to spend my or my friends' money.) I was beginning to think that HOAR Construction (insert obligatory joke here) had taken over the site for their own biz.

Those unfamiliar with Fry's Electronics are in for a treat, especially if you agree with me--Best Buy sorely needs some competition in this town (IMO Circuit City isn't cutting it). Take a look online at Outpost.com for a sampling of their inventory. I still think that location needs its own off-ramp (off 69) to be survive in any capacity. At press time I'm unable to find any online articles about projected grand opening date(s), but I'll keep my eyes open for 'em in the weeks ahead.

From the Jared (Subway-Jared) Hall of Fame

Most of you probably don't remember the movie Varsity Blues, let alone the character Billy Bob played by Ron Lester. (Most of you probably never saw the movie, let alone remember it.)

If you've seen Ron lately (say in Not Another Teen Movie) you wouldn't recognize him. He's lost hundreds of pounds. However, I loved him as Billy Bob in his +300lb glory, especially when he ate pancakes while driving his pickup, chasing it with a big gulp of syrup, directly from the bottle.

Anywho, kudos to Ron for slimming down.

Underground Games

Game Tunnel is a site dedicated to the underground game programmer. There are a few really cool games, like Outpost Kaloki, a Trade Wars-like Sim; Hamsterball, a Monkey Ball-like game, and more.

Of course, there are other, er, games like Dope Farmer, where you, well you get the idea. Just in case you don't, here's some text from the review:

“Also, if you build up enough money, you can buy yourself a meth lab or a chem lab. In them you can create LSD, MDMA, and Meth, which sells for big bucks. Naturally the tradeoff is that they take up more time, but the rewards in cash value can be worth it.” Egads.

Not that these games are going to replace the Half Life's of the world, but it's nice to see that folks programming in garages and basements get some coverage.

MSNBC "Danger in the Making" (Methamphetamine Article/Info)

Having a brother who is a volunteer firefighter is sometimes educational--like when he has to go through several Hazmat training courses to prepare him for the inevitable “meth-lab cleanup” he will be exposed to in his job. Seems that several times a week departments in the Denver area are called to trailers, warehouses, and even cars after a “cooker's” setup goes boom.

MSNBC has an interesting article on how methamphetamine manufacturing and use is on the rise and how it is made, distributed, and consumed.

Non-nude Girls Moblog

I've previously mentioned a few of the nude cameraphone moblogs, but recently saw a mention of a specific "non-nude" moblog.

I suppose it's supposed to be more classy, being non-nude and all. Visit and decide for yourself. :)

Room Blaster "Toy"

Thanks to Engadget for the heads up.

The Room Blaster is the toy we all wish we had--as children to guard our room from siblings (or the dog), and still want as adults to guard our cubicles at work. It has a motion sensor to scan a particular space, detect intruders, and fire targeted foam discs.

I haven't seen it at any US shops (yet), but many UK retailers have it listed for <$50.

Feh. Some reviews of the toy in action are non-too-flattering--it only detects and fires in one direction (doesn't pivot), etc. Oh well, cool idea though.

So You Think You are Witty?

I stumbled across this little gem the other day...

It is a promotional scheme for lightScribe, a company that has a cool technology for burning labels right into CDRs. It uses a technology “conceived by an HP engineer” but requires specific media and drives (HP is launching a handful of lightScribe capable drives).

Anywho, what drew my attention is their Jiffy Toon tool that lets you create a simple 3-panel cartoon like the one below. You pick two characters, fill in dialog, click a button and presto--a witty 3 panel to send to all your friends. Give it a try and let's see how witty you can be!

(Tryan, you, your wife, and your respective Homies could have a ball with this, methinks.)

(No, I'm not taking credit for the script above...it's the sample from the lightScribe site.)

TiVo, TiVo, oh TiVo

TiVo is back on the radar with a handful of news and articles.

Despite lack of innovation over the last year (see PVRblog article referenced below), TiVo is still the best technology in the DVR market.

Putting Tech Problems into Perspective

Whenever I get down about the technology problems I have (hacked server, network problems, bad hard drive, etc) I try to remember things like going to www.linksys.com and getting the following error:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005' 

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][TCP/IP Sockets]SQL Server does not 
exist or access denied. 

/GlobalDBConnection.asp, line 6 

That's it. No page on Linksys.com is currently accessible. (As a reminder, Linksys is now owned by Cisco, widely regarded in the computer world. I wonder if they have an opening for a network manager?)

It's kinda like watching Springer to put your personal problems in perspective.

Ante Meridian, Uncle Meridian, all the Little Meridians

To avoid having to perform last rites on any computer file, try visiting the DigiBless Home Page to bless your important files. IMO they need an exorcism service also.

iStuff of the Future

David McCandless has a parody site showing both the Apple Store of the future and lampooning the Apple way of life. The jokes (subtle and 2x4ish) are too numerous to try and mention here--stop by the site for many chuckles. (Unless you are a Mac-ite, in which case you probably will spend the day looking for the 800# to order a bunch of the merchandise shown.) Oh, and visit his home page to read other humorous musings from David.

Mercenaries - Now Playing

What a great game.

In Mercenaries you play, well, a mercenary. Working for ExOps, a privately owned and operated army, you are sent to North Korea to help take down the Deck of 52, a group of officers in the army of General Song (the ousted tyrant of the area).

The game is incredibly open ended--you are free to roam around the area and go wherever you want and do just about anything. The environment is also very interactive--you can damage and/or destroy just about everything. The vehicles--both ground and air--are incredibly well designed and handle very realistically. The inhabitants of the area act realistically--some of the best part of the game are just wandering into little battles between the factions.

There various factions in the area, include:

• North Koreans
• South Koreans
• Chinese
• Allied Nations
• Russian Mafia

As you roam around you can pick up odd jobs from the various factions for cash, that can then be used to purchase equipment. Your actions do have consequences, causing factions' mood toward you to swing back and forth--if they aren't favorable toward you they become a threat (attacking you whenever you are seen), if they are friendly you can count on them for support. You can call in air support, artillery fire, vehicle drops, and more to help wreak havok on your enemies.

I've said it before, this one's a must have!

Gamer Tees

GameSkins.com has a bunch of cool Tees for the gamer in all of us.

Some of my favorites include:

• Insert Coin (above)
• WASD
• Campers Suck
• Llama

Special mention of Jinx.com, which has a bunch of great, general computer shirts like the one below:

WoW Troubles

Rumor has it that World of Warcraft is having massive server problems that prevent many paid subscribers from logging in.

Other rumors include Blizzard pulling copies of the game off store shelves until the problems clear up. The server outtage and assorted other bugs have caused Penny Arcade to revoke their Game of the Year (2004) award for WoW.

Coincidently, I just noticed that Blizzard has a new job posting for a Network Operations Manager...

Stan Lee to Get Millions from Marvel Movie Revenue

I don' t know the whole story, but it seems ol' Stan was cut out of the profits from the various movies incorporating characters he created. A recent ruling entitles him to 10% of Marvel's profits since November 1998. Way to go, Stan!

'nuf said.

Grizzly-proof Suit

From the some people have too much time on their hands department...

Troy James Hurtubise has constructed (what he calls) a grizzly-proof suit. The suit is made from a hodge-podge of material from titanium plates to French chain mail to high-tech plastics. It's been tested against tree bashing, shotgun blasts, and “biker attacks.” Total cost, $150,000. (Something tells me the prototypes and various other overhead items aren't included in tihs total.)

All this is fairly cool, but leaves me asking, “why?” I suspect this guy is simply looking for an adrenaline high, 'cause who would need this kind of protection against grizzlies? Be sure to watch the promo clip on the web site--although it only shows one of the tree-bashing tests it is still worth a view.

Another Novelty Pillow

Just when I thought I'd seen the best novelty pillow, comes the Horse Head Pillow from the folks at Kropserkel.

Great for leaving a message with, er, troublesome business associates. What's next, a fish pillow so we can snuggle up like Luca Brasi?

Windows XP Media Edition 2005 OS only for sale

About F-ing Time!

I just noticed that WinXP Media Center Edition (software only) was for sale at Newegg.com. For the last few years you needed to spend an extra grand to buy a Media Center PC -- now that the exclusive has been broken and you can get the OS only, perhaps the dedicated mediaPCs will drop in price.

Hijack points out that a hardware purchase is required to buy WinMediaXP from Newegg. However, that's only to satisfy the OEM pricing on this item--you can buy a cheap mouse or something to qualify. Note that you do have to accept MS's System Builder license though (link below).

There is a God - new season of MI-5 starts Saturday

From the UK series “Spooks”, A&E's “MI-5” is the US edited (ugh) version. On Saturday (January 8th, 2005) A&E will play the first two season's of episodes followed by the new season premier.

If you have a DVR, warm it up!

Suprnova.org Out of the Torrent Biz

suprnova.org is out of the torrent-serving business.

From the site: “The Suprnova Team would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year ! Also, everybody is still welcome to join us on irc (irc://irc.suprnova.org/suprnova.org) or on forums (www.suprnovaforums.net), but please remember, we are no longer offering torrents.”

Once the one-stop shop for finding any torrent wanted, pirates/hackers will have to find another source.

"Busty" Mouse Pads

This one is for a particular reader (Hi-ahem-jack-cough!).

Busty Mousepads presents, well, Busty Mousepads:

"Agent Orange" - Short Film by Tony Scott

Part of the Amazon Theater Exclusive Short Film Series.

Stylish and slick, just like most of what the Scott brothers do--continues to impress and make them two of my favorite directors.

Man sues "Fear Factor" 'cause Stunt Made Him (a viewer!) Sick

Cleveland paralegal Austin Aitken has filed suit against NBC because a stunt (the rat eating stunt from the 100th episode in NYC) made him ill.

From Reuters: “In a handwritten four-page lawsuit ... In a brief telephone interview with Reuters, Aitken said, "I am not at liberty to discuss the complaint unless it is a paid-interview situation." ”

Can you say “LOSER?” In the words of the host, Joe Rogan, “What did you think the show was about?”

Holiday Lights with Web Control = Hoax

Alek Komarnitsky put 17,000 lights on his house and then told folks that they could view and control the lights via his Web cam. Lights, true. Web view/control, false.

Some people have too much time on their hands.

Samsung launches 102-inch plasma screen at CES 2005

Holy cow--one hundred two inches. That's a mighty big plasma screen, I'm sure with a mighty big price tag. House or TV...house or TV...

Specs include: high-definition resolution of 1920 pixels x 1080 pixels, a brightness of 1000 candelas per square meter and a contrast ratio of 2000:1

Mercenaries - For XBox

Due out later this month (Jan '05), “Mercenaries” comes to the XBox courtesy of Pandemic Studios, published by Lucas Arts. (Pretty much an all-star lineup of gaming production for those just now joining the XB scene.) Run, gun, hijack vehicles, blow shit up (see the trailers on Official Site).

Looks like a blast! BitchZilla can't wait to play.

NetDisk from XiMeta

Very interesting product--a USB and Ethernet plugable, portable drive. If it were truly plug-and-play on Ethernet it would totally rock, but it requires drivers on machines to access it over the network. (With USB it operates just like other, portable USB drives.) Some cool features include the ability to span multiple drives, extending your data is as easy as plugging in another drive thanks to XiMeta's NDAS™ (Network Direct Attached Storage) Technology .

A step in the right direction for the future of plug-and-play storage...

"Are the boobs in your game covered?"

After reading the following articles you would probably answer like I do now: “No, the developers aren't shown in the game at all.”

Seems that the folks at TOPHEAVY Studios (and their distributor, Take Two as well as their game's platform manufacturers, Sony and Microsoft have a fiasco on their hands similar to that of the Girls Gone Wild videos: Underage girl flesh in their video and lack of permissions for some (if not all) video shown. C'mon guys, it's in Photography 101, “You can't use photos or videos of people for commercial purposes without appropriate release or consent.” Oh, and check ID cards for Pete's sake!

Thanks TOPHEAVY for helping perpetuate the bad rap given gaming. You boobs.

Halo2 Voices

I found the voice credits for Halo2 interesting. They include:

• Orlando Jones (ex-7up guy)
• Laura Prepon (That 70's Show)
• Michelle Rodriguez (Resident Evil, SWAT)
• Ron Perlman (Beauty and the Beast (TV), Blade 2, Hellboy)
• Michael Wincott (lots of bad guys, including roles in: The Crow, Romeo is Bleeding, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and The Three Musketeers)

My personal fav is the ever-sexy voice of Jen Taylor, who has voiced more female video game characters than I can count. Sample some outtakes from Halo2 here.

Anyone with an Xbox: Pick up this game! Visually and gameplay-wise it is what having an Xbox is all about.

HUFF on Showtime

Worth getting Showtime for this 1 hour / week show. I didn't fully appreciate Hank Azaria before this--sure I knew he was talented, but he's absolutely brilliant in this series. The supporting cast is likewise excellent (esp. Oliver Platt).

If you get the chance, beg, borrow, or steal to see this one.