Most Super Robot Man

Monday, January 29, 2007

Disappointed by Fortune Cookie Grammar Again

[begin rant]

I'm guessing absolutely no one proof reads fortune cookie messages anymore before they are printed out a thousand times. Either that or the computer that spits them out has a lame sense of humor.

"Your luck has been completely changed tobay."

The way the "fortune" is surrounded by smiley faces emphasizes the fact that you're really not supposed to take whatever this says seriously. And this isn't even a real fortune; it is a statement. Since when did statements become suitable substitutions for actual fortunes and prophecies that are supposed to be embedded in these yummy cookie things?

[end rant]

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Book written entirely in txt msg lol ;)

The first text message only novel has been published, and of course it was done in Finland. (All Finnish people have double jointed thumbs, giving them the clear advantage in text messaging.)

Here is the book synopsis from CNN:

"The Last Messages" tells the story of a fictitious information-technology executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only through text messages.

His messages, and the replies -- roughly 1,000 altogether -- are listed in chronological order in the 332-page novel written by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala.

The texts are rife with grammatical errors and abbreviations commonly used in regular SMS traffic.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Prehistoric Jaws eats Paris Hilton

Last week in Japan, a rare appearance of a living deep sea frill shark made made headlines after eating twenty people including Paris Hilton.

*Jaws music here*

Ok, it didn't eat anybody. Thought I would juice up the story a bit. The very old and reclusive species of shark are no danger to humans, due to their diet being limited to squid and weird fish.

The ancient shark is rarely seen because it lives in the darkness of the deep deep sea. This one was caught by rescuers after becoming sick and confused and swimming in shallow waters before dieing.

Thanks to AOL Uncut video for this clip, which is much higher quality than the one floating around YouTube and CNN now:

Friday, January 26, 2007

Teacher forgets to update computer, goes to jail

When a teacher forgets to renew the school's license for their web filtering software, it only makes sense to throw them in jail for 40 years.

In a rash of ultra consertive zeal, a Norwich Public Schools teacher is being prosecuted for allowing adult content to leak onto one of the school's laptops. Apparently adware or malware got installed on the machine (easy to do, especially if Norton was outdated) and the malicious program sent a stream of x-rated pops up to the screen.

The teacher was convicted of "four counts of risk of injury to a minor," even though I didn't read anyplace where any students actually viewed the explicit pop-ups.

Anyone else think this is a little extreme?

Thursday, January 25, 2007

The Official Condom of New York

Would you be more likely to use a condom if it had the face of New York's mayor on it? I know I would.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to hand out millions more free condoms to combat the spread of STDs, and he thinks that putting them in "jazzy packaging" will help them be used more. Possible condom brand themes include:

- Subway theme (with maps printed on the condoms so you can use them to find your way home after a quickie on the number 4 train)

- Chinese fortune condoms

- Condoms with numbers on them so they double as lottery tickets

- Jesus condoms

And my favorite:

- Scratch and Sniff condoms

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

CIA tale scams 22 out of almost $1 million

I can't wait for the made-for-TV movie version of this story to come out:

SHREVEPORT, La. - She claimed to be a CIA agent who could have satellites scan people’s bodies for disease, then have CIA agents administer secret medicines to them while they slept.

As far-fetched as her story was, Stacey Finley convinced 22 neighbors, in-laws and friends in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi to pay her nearly $1 million over the past six years.



Link to full details at MSNBC.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Why do cats like snow

I'm not a fan of snow and ice anymore, since I became too old to play in it and now shovel it instead.

But I was very surprised how much my cat loved it. I think it might be the first snow she has seen, so she had no fear of it. She actually paid more attention to the snow then to that tennis ball she loves to pounce on.

I've got a video of her playing in the snow on YouTube below:








Saturday, January 20, 2007

Your eyes are lying

Cool optical illusion trick.

Stare at the crosshairs in the middle of the picture.

Soon you will see a moving green dot. Except there is no green dot, because its only an after image temporarily burnt into you retina.

Keep staring. Slowing all the purple dots will fade until they disappear completely!

After 20 minutes of this you will never be able to see the color purple again.

After 30 minutes you will lose the ability to pronounce the letter "l" and will have a strange craving for McDonald's.

Or at least thats what happened to me.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Conan O'Brien is Awesome

Conan is on right now. Once again he proves his awesomeness.

Ha ha, Conan just made a funny joke about that funny smell in New York last week.

I'm going to watch the rest of the show instead of writing a witty or entertaining blog.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

I'm not playing cards anymore

What I learned today: Don't play card frisbee with someone who can toss playing cards at 80 mph.

And especially don't try to catch said cards with your face.

Also, I found out that a little known fact: In the standard 52 count deck, the three of diamonds is the sharpest card. Its true, look it up in a book.

Monday, January 15, 2007

MLK liked blonde jokes too

I was going to make a serious and profound post today since it is MLK Jr day, such as talk about America's foreign policy problems. But then I thought better of it and decided to tell a blonde joke.

Three blondes are walking in the woods. They come upon a pair of tracks and the first blonde says "I think they are RABBIT tracks!"

The second blonde exclaims "No they are obviously DEER tracks!"

The third blonde says "They look like BEAR tracks to me!"

So all three decide to get down on their knees and have a closer inspection of the said tracks.

Thirty seconds later a train runs over all three of them.

*insert rimshot here*

Saturday, January 13, 2007

The word of the day is 'discontent'

I need to find a new Chinese restaurant because the fortunes at my current one are starting to creep me out.

Today's "fortune" is:

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.

Note the smiley faces surrounding the message are a half ass attempt to make it seem as if this fortune was something you actually wanted to read.

I'm hoping a lot of progress will be made in the area of better fortune cookie writing technology. But at least I'm discontented with these fortunes, so maybe that's the first step.

Procrastination study published -- five years late

I put off writing this article for two days, but at least I'm not as bad as most people. According to that study 26% of Americans are chronic procrastinators.

But there is a beautiful ironic twist: This was supposed to be a five year study but actually took twice that long because the professors put off publishing their results until now.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

I'm doing this blog wrong

I think I'm doing this wrong.

According to this site about building a successful niche blog, I'm not doing anything right here.

Maybe I should give up and then this would become one of the millions abandoned blogs that have stopped being updated by their authors.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Hackers turn your computer into a bomb

Another great reason I love tabloids is this gem of a headline:

HACKERS CAN TURN YOUR COMPUTER INTO A BOMB

I wish I knew which tabloid this scan came from, but I'm guessing its Weekly World News.

The "article" quotes Arnold Yabenson who is president of the non-existent National CyberCrime Prevention Foundation. He alleges that there is a super-dooper email virus out there than when opened won't shut down your company's network, but instead will actually overheat your processor and blow up your computer.

My favorite quote: "When the receiver downloads the attachment, the electrical current and molecular structure of the central processing unit is altered, causing it to blast apart like a large hand grenade."


Friday, January 05, 2007

Congressmen in Virtual Reality

The internet has now become serious.

Congressman George Miller made sub-headlines today by appearing in the virtual computer world of Second Life. He's not the first lawmaker to enter the digital escape, Rep Warner did so and ... played air drums?

Seriously.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Hapland!

Today's blog is brought to you by the letter H.

Hapland is a crazy and innovative flash game made by... somebody. Somebody good with Flash and a very strange and creative mind. This is an interesting puzzle game, where the goal is to move these little stick guys in the right places to make a Rube Goldberg's type machine work.

At first it seems bizarre and annoying, but once you figure out the first sequence of events you will be hooked.

Hapland 1 (I finished this one)
Hapland 2 (What do I do with the fishing guy???)
Hapland 3 (This one scares me...)

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Proof that Girls are Evil

I totally agree.

Click the thumbnail for the full image.

10 points to anyone who can find out what website this picture came from.

Children of Men

Interesting way to ring in the new year: watch a dark and stunning anti-utopian movie that is so realistic that it leaves you in chills.

I just watched Children Of Men, a new movie based on P. D. James novel of the same name and stars Clive Owen of Sin City fame.

This is an amazing and sobering movie, and reminded me of Saving Private Ryan combined with George Orwell's 1984. The violence is as stark and hyper-realistic as in Saving Private Ryan, but even more disturbing. At least in that movie only soldiers died in disturbing ways; in Children both soldiers and civilians are senselessly killed with graphic and heart-pounding realism.

I especially loved the movie for its dystopian atmosphere that would have made Orwell sweat. One theme in the movie seems to be that fascism is the natural form of government in chaotic times. Here the strongest take power and destroy any one different in a effort to create a small paradise of tranquility for the rich while the majority of the population suffers.

Some spoilers: A chain of events (war in Iraq and Israel, bird flu of 2008, nuclear holocaust in New York) creates a unstable world that is not ready for a real disaster: global infertility of women. After the last child is born in 2009, the world sinks into a spiral of war, terrorism, and self destruction. Without children there is no hope for the future. Until one woman miraculously becomes pregnant...

This is definitely not a feel good or Friday night date movie. Much like after Saving Private Ryan, expect the theater to be sobering quite.