February 2009 Archives

A good list of no-nos to be aware of at Mardi Gras.

Mardi Gras Moments: What Not to Do - Intelligent Travel Blog

4. Be wary of the scam artists! If someone approaches you with the question, "I bet you $100 I know where you got your shoes" or any question along those lines, do yourself a favor and do not wager! Even if you purchased your shoes on Mars, they will get you every time with the infamous answer: "on your feet." And at that point you may feel obliged to pay, because technically they are correct, aren't they? Sometimes it's even common to be forced into a service, such as someone offering a shoeshine, and before you know it they are shining your shoes and demand immediate payment (even if you said "no thanks" loud and clear). Avoid these folks as much as possible. The more you stall, the higher the chance of being pushed into a bad situation. Just keep on moving.

The last part of this example actually happened to me in New Orleans. Granted, it was just a homeless guy who wanted me to take his picture, then asked for a buck in payment afterwards.

Oh no! This place was the mecha of Tiki culture in San Francisco!

Will The Tonga Room Be a Casualty of The Fairmont’s Condo Plans?

An alarm is going up amongst tiki-lovers and all those who appreciate San Francisco’s eclectic (hic!) history! The Tonga Room, the much loved tacky tiki bar in the Fairmont Hotel’s basement (California @ Mason in Nob Hill), is at great risk due to its owner’s plan to convert a large portion of the hotel into condominiums.

The plan would replace the existing Fairmont Hotel Tower with a new Residential Tower and in the process convert 226 hotel rooms into 160 condos. The Tonga Room is at the base of the existing tower.

Sounds awesome[ly boring]. Kind of like Star Wars Galaxies, except without the bounty hunters, strange creatures, space pirates, blasters, or anything else that was cool.

Nasa: NASA Goes Massively Multiplayer With Astronaut

NASA wanted a massively multiplayer online game, and now they're getting one, signing three separate development studios to work on Astronaut: Moon, Mars, and Beyond.

While video game players have long dreamed of traveling into the stars and meeting exotic alien species, real outer space is relatively boring. Now NASA seeks to change all of that with the development of a massively multiplayer online exploration game called Astronaut: Moon, Mars, and Beyond. NASA has selected three development studios to work on the project - Project Whitecard, Information in Place, and Virtual Heroes - the last of which did work on America's Army.

Neat-looking trailer for the new Eve Online expansion. However, Koatu and commenters rightly point out that it glosses over all the problems in the Eve game. That it's "essentially the trailer version of a photoshopped MySpace picture."

Still, looks very good. If I had the time, I might try it out.

Ccp: Eve Online Apocrypha Trailer Makes Eve Look Interesting

Some before and after images as they improve the models for the Zerg.

StarCraft II Graphical Updates: Before And After

Always neat to see someone's list of sexy music.

YesButNoButYes: Top Ten Songs to Have Sex To

3. Symphony No 7 in A Major Op. 92: II. Allegretto, Beethoven

My personal favorite of all of Beethoven's works, the second movement of his seventh symphony is outstanding in its complexity. Dark, lavish, and profound ... this covers every single emotion possible. It may not be the cheeriest piece to put on while you're getting it on, but it'll make you seem sophisticated. And if you can time your movements to the changing tempos and dynamics of the song, you'll definitely be in for a wild night.

When to Use It: If you're lucky enough to be with a cougar, they'll appreciate your sophistication. Try it with them. Or, you know, if you're with a classy chick/dude.

Note: Seriously, this thing gets very loud and very quite. Listen to the song before hand so you aren't caught off guard by a rapid crescendo. We wouldn't want you to suffer and ill-timed "mishaps".

Spot on.

DAN METH - My Trilogy Meter I know other movie geeks are...

Oh, shucks. Stop already.

Zakaria: The Canadian Solution | Newsweek Voices - Fareed Zakaria | Newsweek.com

Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it's Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada's banking system the healthiest in the world. America's ranked 40th, Britain's 44th.

Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

Huh, so they finally jazzed it up.

YouTube - The Simpsons - NEW Main Title

I almost forgot to post this.

Ecstasy's long-term effects revealed - health - 11 February 2009 - New Scientist

Twenty years ago, young people all over the world donned T-shirts emblazoned with smiley faces and danced all night, fuelled by a molecule called MDMA. Most of these clubbers have since given up ecstasy and are sliding into middle age. The question is, has ecstasy given up on them?

Enough time has finally elapsed to start asking if ecstasy damages health in the long term. According to the biggest review ever undertaken, it causes slight memory difficulties and mild depression, but these rarely translate into problems in the real world. While smaller studies show that some individuals have bigger problems, including weakened immunity and larger memory deficits, so far, for most people, ecstasy seems to be nowhere near as harmful over time as you may have been led to believe.

Funny and/or serious ones, just for that special occasion.

Awkward Valentines : Because Romance is SO Last Year

Enjoy Your Stay | Futility Closet

A neat list of phrases you are likely to need in Borneo, at least according to a phrasebook distributed in 1966 by the Borneo Literature Bureau. Such useful ice breakers as:

- There are too many rats.

- There are a lot of mosquitoes here.

- The cockroaches have eaten my shirt.

Awww, no more School House Rock.

If I'da been born in a different era, I'da married a dame like her.

Playbill News: Blossom Dearie, Vocalist Whose Wispy Voice Caressed Show Music and Standards, Has Died

Blossom Dearie, the American singer whose little-girl voice and jazzy piano arrangements offered a unique approach to show tunes and the Great American Songbook, died Feb. 7 at her home in Greenwich Village, according to colleagues.

Warning: turn your speakers up really loud for this.

Among the other things they're calling it...

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

We don't really get much exposure to Trader Joes up here in Canada, but I remember loving it when I was visiting the U.S. Such a crazy store. It was like a small hometown food surplus store with a tiki theme. But in a good way.

Apparently, they don't allow photography in the store. Huh.

YouTube - If I Made a Commercial for Trader Joe's

In light of the fact that I missed both these memes, I bring you a mashup of two recent Web events: Christian Bale going apeshit on a gaffer, and drugged out little David on the way back home from the dentist.

Strangely, it works.

YouTube - Christian Bale takes David to the Dentist (Mash-Up)

Click on the link to see the others. They're brilliant!

I Believe in Advertising | Advertising Blog & Community | Only selected advertising - Sci-Fi Channel: Lagoon, Zombie, Aliens

Why let all the atheists have the fun. Make your own slogan today:

Bus slogan generator

Sheyla Hershey just broke the record for biggest breast implants. Yikes!

TEXAS WOMAN BREAKS BREAST IMPLANT RECORD - New York Post

The 28-year-old, a Texas housewive, has had nine operations to get her up to this size.

She traveled to Brazil to get her last procedure which took her from an FFF to a KKK after Texas officials refused to do it, for fear that her breasts could explode.

A spud-gun. Why didn't I think of that?

Uber Tuber on MAKE: television from make magazine on Vimeo.

MAKE: Blog: Uber Tuber on MAKE: television

I always felt a little more belonging up here. Now, if it were only a little warmer.

Almost a quarter of Canadians don't believe in any god, new poll says

Fewer than three-quarters of Canadians believe in a god, suggests a new Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey.

"Religion in Canada today is not a particularly divisive subject and tolerance levels for different beliefs are high," said Harris-Decima president Bruce Anderson. "This is evident in the fact that one in four people feel comfortable saying they do not believe in a god."

The poll found 72 per cent of respondents said they believed in a god, while 23 per cent said they did not believe in any god. Six per cent did not offer an opinion.

Polls have told a different story in the United States.

"Canada's secularism stands in clearer distinction, when compared to the cultural and political influences of religion in the United States," said Anderson. "In one Harris Interactive study in the United States, conducted in 2007, the number who said they were non-believers was only eight per cent."

Please do not adjust your network settings. Makes an awesome home page.

Please stand by

Some good ideas for Skynet to brainstorm.

Topless Robot - 10 Helpful Suggestions for Killing John Connor

8) Stop Sending Such Fragile Terminators

In the Sarah Connor Chronicles, the Terminators are about as easy to kill as your average body-builder on PCP -- difficult, but hardly impossible. Wow, that's a heck of a killing machine there, Skynet. In the first Terminator movie, the T-800 could take hundred of rounds of bullets, car crashes, pipe bombs, the explosion of an entire gasoline tanker, and still keep going, eventually needing an industrial-strength machine press to finally take it out. In the Sarah Connor Chronicles, apparently a falling elevator can take one out. Or a few of gunshots to the head. Or popping open it's head with a screwdriver and taking out the chip after giving the terminator a shock...

This is three kinds of awesome! Although, I suppose you could show some fat guy eating spaghetti to the tune of Also sprach Zarathustra, and it would seem awesome too.

Amazing New Water-Powered Jet Pack - Watch more Free Videos

Amazing New Water-Powered Jet Pack Video

Yum? Yuck?

YesButNoButYes: Cakes That Look Like Steak

Very cool interpretation of popular (not good, but popular) movies, done as if they were 1960s books.

spacesick: The "I Can Read Movies" Series

... for a whole month. His diet will also include beer and martinis.

Bacon Stupidity

I’ll get right to the good stuff: for the entire month of February, 2009, I, Michael J. Nelson will eat nothing but bacon. Nothing, my friends, but bacon.

Why? Because bacon is nature’s finest and most nourishing food. Also, because several doubters on the RiffTrax staff had the unmitigated gall to insult bacon by making the outrageous claim that, as good as it is, no one could eat very much of it and live. I can and will. Therefore I will spend the month proving it.

According to Jeffrey Tambor, that is. Michael Cera was the only holdout ... and the only one with anything resembling a career at this time.

'Arrested Development' movie is on!

Michael Cera will do the highly debated “Arrested Development” movie, according to his on-screen granddad, Jeffrey Tambor.

“If I have to call him up and say, ‘Get on set right now, young man,’ he’ll be there,” the comic said at a recent Upright Citizens Brigade L.A. performance of “Word Girl.” “The movie is going to happen this year, and Michael Cera is on board. Trust me.”

So, in a nutshell, 'crisis' does not equal 'opportunity'. This was a myth that's been propagated over the years due to a misinterpretation of the Chinese characters.

danger opportunity ≠ crisis

The third, and fatal, misapprehension is the author's definition of jī as "opportunity." While it is true that wēijī does indeed mean "crisis" and that the wēi syllable of wēijī does convey the notion of "danger," the jī syllable of wēijī most definitely does not signify "opportunity." Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines "opportunity" as:

a favorable juncture of circumstances;
a good chance for advancement or progress.

While that may be what our Pollyanaish advocates of "crisis" as "danger" plus "opportunity" desire jī to signify, it means something altogether different.

The jī of wēijī, in fact, means something like "incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes)." Thus, a wēijī is indeed a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things start to go awry.

Makes the family look like backwards cultists.

YouTube - The WTF Blanket (Snuggie Parody)