Recently in Laugh it up, fuzzball. Category

Having a rough day? Skim through these outtakes from Whose Line Is It Anyway. I almost hurt myself laughing... warning, these are outtakes for a reason - a lot aren't even remotely suitable for mixed audiences...

452 points, so you achieved position 347 of 82048 on the ranking list
You type 562 characters per minute
You have 106 correct words and
you have 0 wrong words

I ran it through twice, improving the second time (from 95 up to 106). It takes a full minute of fast typing to make it work, and I feel silly chalking off my day in one minute increments just to get a higher ranking :)

The silly little "past this code!" thing is:

106 words

Typingtest

I think Lovely Listings is my new favorite blog. Someone is collecting awful pictures from real estate listings and posting them, with great commentary.

Chalk out an hour to get caught up. There's some doozies in there.

Updated to fix broken URL. Sorry!

Aww, what the hey. Here's my icon from MadMenYourself.com. Whadya think, accurate? My mom spent a long time fiddling with it to get it 'just right'.

What happens when there's a rampant conversation going on on a geek channel? It's time for Umbrella Metaphors.

"If a language were used to make an umbrella, what would it look like?"

Naturally, there were several suggestions for certain languages.

• PHP umbrella is made of ragged pieces of duct tape
• VB umbrella is old and kids-size
• C++ umbrella requires a 15-digit code to open
• Java umbrella is sold with the handle and material seperately, and you need to match them up, and you have to download it from github
• Ruby umbrella is shaped like a cube, but if you stand in just the right place, it keeps you try
• ASP umbrella is large, but has big holes cut into it
• Fortran umbrella is made of iron, and is rusted shut ;)
• haskell umbrella is inside-out.
• .net umbrellas are a range of colour-matching umbrellas, but they only work with certain types of rain.
• lisp umbrella is old, but still works, and all the new umbrellas coming out look like it more and more
• lisp umbrella is incomprehensible as a functional umbrella. but pushing a button appears to keep the water off you, just have no idea how.
• lisp umbrella is patterned with a bunch of images of other lisp umbrellas on it, which are in turn..

Thanks to Avatar-x, ojacobson, the_goat, Optic, elmood, and the other happy geeks at the Toronto Hacklab

When I was a kid I remember reading TV Guide in it's glossy mini-magazine format - it was like an up to date glimpse of the future at my fingertips. (Anyone reading this who was born after 1995 - this was before the Internet).

Occasionally their summaries of movies and shows would be completely off the wall. One I remember pretty clearly was:

Wizard of Oz - Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.

Fortunately, someone has written an entire page full of them.

Thanks to Ellen for the pointer.

ETA - Well hell. That wasn't TV guide. According to IMDB , it was written by Rick Polito of the Marin Independent Journal. Oh well. TV Guide was still pretty cool.

So do I gain or lose points for laughing at this ICANHASCHEESBURGER picture, then going "Wait, but that's not Linux, it's FreeBSD..."

Thanks to Ben Levy for forwarding this to me - UserFriendly takes on registration at an IT conference...

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems. — Jamie Zawinski

Boy ain't that the truth.

Because you have to have something to lighten the mood.

(Thanks to ThreePanelSoul)

Those crazy guys at Apple. Look at this wonderful April Fools joke they did.

So. So. Check this out. They modified their Apple Updater on Windows machines to pop up a window, and... I swear, I can't stop laughing... even though I don't even HAVE Safari or iTunes installed, they've put them on the updater list (as a "Software Update" *BWAH*), and automatically CHECKED them! Not only that, the highlighted button on the dialog is to "Install 3 Items", so anyone could easily come along, see the update window "Oh yes, I need the Quicktime update" and... and... BANG! They have another 88 megs of software installed that they probably don't even want!

I tell you, those guys have the best designs, the best platforms, and they make some great stuff, but it's the little tweaks like this, the little jokes, that just crack me up. I mean, cmon. An updater that tried to trick you into installing software you don't have. Hee hee hee!

Thanks Apple, for making my week!

With a nod to Jeff Foxworthy, I hereby present a couple ideas on how to tell if you might be an old-fart geek fogie...

• If everytime you hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE, you expect to see Sidekick pop up for a second.
• If you ever owned a a paper punch specifically for double-siding your floppy disks.
• If you remember your amazement at copying a diskette using ONLY four disk swaps.
• If you find yourself thinking that a Telebit Trailblazer would really speed up your internet use.
• If you ever rented a truck to get a computer that someone was 'just giving away'.
• If you have to fight the urge to make FWEEEEE SCHHRRKKKRRRK noises whenever you hear an ATM or a Fax machine in use.
• If you have ever uttered the phrase "Yeah, but the Newton was better."
• If you refuse to throw out disks for machines that haven't been manufactured in over two decades.
• If you know what ^X^Cc means.
• If you remember the first time you bought a color monitor. Double points if you're still paying for it. Special bonus points if you still have it.
• If you find yourself in the middle of a problem, and being tempted to type 'S..TILTOWAIT'
• If you have ever personally owned an entire DEC documentation set, and thought it was the coolest thing in the world.
• If you remember getting your first hard drive, and amazing your friends with comments like "This thing can hold as much data as FIFTY floppy disks!"
• If you remember when disks WERE floppy.

Feel free to contribute any additions you might think of...

I generally don't forward along memes, youtube videos, or whatever, but having just seen this one in Steam's livejournal, I know enough cat owners to know it'll be appreciated. Have the sound on, it makes it all more apropos. Totally worksafe, assuming your coworkers can handle "mrow?" and "BWAHAHAHAH".

Personal observation. I believe this is like one of those Mutual of Omaha "hidden camera in the wild" videos. It's the world of cats we never see or acknowledge. Or at least the world as they see it.

(thanks, blame, eye-rolling glances to blk for this one.)

So it's no secret I'm a screaming fan of Robot Chicken, and introduce folks to it whenever I can. RC has been doing various star wars spoofs for a while, but now they apparently have their own special coming up.

June 17 will be the premier of the Robot Chicken Starwars Special. From the site:

Adult Swim's "Robot Chicken" travels to a galaxy far, far away to create an all Star Wars-themed special. Premiering on June 17, "Robot Chicken: Star Wars" brazenly combines the satirical sensibilities of Seth Green and Matthew Senreich's (Stoopid Monkey Productions) "Robot Chicken" with the unforgettable moments and favorite characters of the Star Wars universe -- among them, its creator himself, George Lucas. Transformed into the stop-motion animated characters that are the hallmark of Adult Swim's "Robot Chicken," and in conjunction with ShadowMachine Films (Alex Bulkley/Corey Campodonicos), the Star Wars galaxy takes on an entirely different attitude.

The site also has a link to the trailer for the special. There's a lot of material that's already been shown on RC, but a lot of new stuff as well. Can't wait!

Edit - ah, here's the link to the trailer.

Just had to share this one ...

Kraigen: Since the creation of the Internet, the Earth's rotation has been fueled, primarily, by the collective spinning of English teachers in their graves.

The folks over at XM Radio really need to copy edit their advertising.

On the way home from picking up the kids in the carpool, I'm listening to XM, when I hear an ad for XM's MLB channels. Now I'm all for baseball... it rocks, particularly when the Sox beat the tar out of the Yankees, but... when the ad copy says, and I'm quoting from memory here...

Coming to you from 22 million miles overhead... MLB Baseball, XM Channel 175

I had no idea that they were putting satellites well outside the orbit of the moon.

Snarks aside, XM provides services via two satellites in geosynchronous position over the equator (interestingly called 'Rhythm' and 'Blues'. Geosync satellites orbit the earth at the same speed the earth is rotating, so they appear 'stationary' over one point on the planet. To do this, they have to orbit at an altitude of approximately 22,000 miles. (that's thousand, not million).

I guess accurate copy just doesn't make very interesting ads.

From a conversation with Kevin about his final decision to punt windows and move on to better things...

nickhalfasleep sez:
Amazon users who bought a mac also purchased:
* Beret
* Black Sweater
* Smug attitude

What's interesting now is watching how the bar has been raised on (dare I say) 'both' alternate environments. Linux and OSX. Both have matured enormously in the last 5 years, from 'toys' and 'hacker student environments' into true enterprise class platforms, while in all honesty, Windows has changed little.

I know this has been scattered around the net a few times, but it still cracks me up, seeing as I'm dead in the middle of all this preppiedom.

<Xilet> everytime you uninstall sendmail, an angel gets its wings.

In all my driving around I have a lot of time to listen to XM Radio in the techno-van. Much of the time I spend listening to the various comedy channels - sort of non stop standup. It's pretty interesting, but one unexpected delight keeps coming up.

Apparently XM Channel 151 has picked up the entire "Chicken Man" radio series. I used to hear this regularly on WMMR in Philadelphia, but hadn't heard it since. It was a delight to hear that unmistakable introduction...

And now, it's time for another exciting episode in the life of the most fantastic crimefighter the world has ever known... BRA BRAAA BRAH BRAAAAHHHHH CHICKEN... MAAAAAAAAN... (He's everywhere, he's everywhere!)

For those that know this series, you can't help but smile and hear the intro clearly when reading those words. Even after almost 40 years, it's still a hoot to listen to, and I have to thank the anonymous genius at XM Radio who managed to get this show back on the air.

Some further details about the show are here. Thanks XM!

... the roots from which all tasty animations sprang... every few years, we should watch...

Cows with Guns.

(Following a trend today of watching silly animations like The Ring in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies)

Following the train of gakkedness, Alyxyn referred to Tom's website and noted that a discussion had sprung up on The Straight Dope regarding Tom's list. I reproduce it here for your enjoyment:

You don't think of citrus when people mention "The Oranges".
You know that it's called Great Adventure, not Six Flags.
A good, quick breakfast is a hard roll with butter.
You've known the way to Seaside Heights since you were seven.
You've eaten at a Diner
You remember that the "Two Guys" were from Harrison.
You know that the state isn't one big oil refinery.
At least three people in your family still love Bruce Springsteen
You know what a "jug handle" is. (Not a fat roll on the body)
You know that WaWa is a convenience store.
You know that the state isn't all farmland.
You know that there are no "beaches" in New Jersey - there's "The Shore". And you don't go "to the shore" - you go "down the Shore". And when you are there, you're not "at the shore" - you are "down the shore".

Heard on IRC today:

<dirac> I was amused earlier today when I read someones translation of Ubuntu: "African word meaning "Can't install Debian""

(As written by Evan Parks of NYC on The Cycling Forum :

All who are in need of spring training, come and ride with us. All who are hungry, come and partake of our carbohydrate-laden treats.

[The bottle of cytomax is held up and the blessing is recited:]

Blessed are You, our G-d, Universal Ruling Presence, who has created the
fruit of the laboratory.

The youngest rider asks:
1. On all other rides, we eat all kinds of bars. On this ride, why do we
only eat hard, unleavened Power Bars?
2. On all other rides, we might consume a wide range of fruits. On this
ride, why do we eat bananas?
3. On all other rides, we might not dip our bananas even once in our gu.
On this ride, why do we dip our bananas twice?
4. On all other rides, we ride sitting up straight. On this ride, why do
we ride in a reclining position on recumbents?

The answer my children, may be found in the story of Passover.

This is the power bar of our affliction, which our ancestors baked 400
years ago.
Many years ago, we were slaves to our automobiles, driving hither and
thither, not knowing that a better way existed. If the Holy One, blessed be
He, had not shown us the way of the bicycle, then we, our children and
our children's children would have remained enslaved to motor vehicle. Even
if all of us were wise, all of us understanding, all of us knowing the book
of Effective Cycling, we would still be obligated to discuss the liberation
through cycling; and everyone who discusses this liberation at length is
praiseworthy.

There are four types of children who ask questions on this ride: the
wise one, the bad one, the simple one, and the one who does not know to ask.
- What does the wise one ask? I don't know; I couldn't understand him
either. Him you must send to a school for gifted children.
- What does the bad one ask? He says, "What is this ride to you?"
Because he excludes himself from the community of cyclists, you must exclude him from your ride, and he will go back to his employer and get paid double-time and a half for working on a holiday.
- What does the simple one ask? He simply asks, "What is this?" You will
say to him, "This is a bike ride."
- As for the one who does not know to ask, you must go to his room, wake
him up and say, "Next year, come to the bike ride on time!"

These are the Ten Plagues which the Holy One, blessed be He, brought
upon the motorists, namely as follows:

[When saying the ten plagues, spill a drop of cytomax from the sports
bottle itself ten times for each plague:]

High gas prices
Congestion
Registration fees
Pollution
Pot holes
Expensive parking
Speeding tickets
Sedendary lifestyle
Obesity
First-born getting a driver's licence

How many levels of favors has the Eternal One bestowed upon us?

If we would be wearing padded bike shorts, but not have clipless pedals,
it would have been enough.
If we would have clipless pedals, but not at least Shimano 105
components, it would have been enough.
If we would be equipped with at least Shimano 105 components, but not a
delicious post-ride dinner, it would have been enough.
If we would been served a delicious dinner and no dessert, it would have been enough.
If we would eaten dessert, but not have a hangover from too much carousing, it would have been enough.

(Pick up the cytomax and say:) Thus how much more so should we be
grateful to the Eternal One for the doubled and redoubled goodness that He has bestowed upon us! We do wear padded bike shorts, we do have clipless pedals, and we do have at least Shimano 105 components (and some of us have Ultegra and even Campy Chorus, and many other wonders), and we did eat a delicious post-ride dinner, and we did get dessert, and now we pray that we do not get a hangover from too much carousing -- let us say, Amen!

Thus it is our duty to thank, to laud, to praise, to glorify, to exalt,
to adore, to bless, to elevate and to honor the One who did all these
miracles for cyclists before us and for us. He took us from car-driving slavery
to bicycling freedom, from steel-caged enclosed sorrow to the open road of
joy, and from bondage to redemption.

Blessed are You, our G-d, Universal Ruling Presence, who has redeemed us
and redeemed our ancestors, and enabled us on this ride to eat power bars
and bananas. So too, G-d, our G-d and G-d of our ancestors, enable us to
attain other rides and cycling events that will come to us in peace with
happiness, and with rejoicing in Your service.

This year we watch the Tour De France in the living room, next year may
we see it in person!

(Thanks... or something... to my father in law for forwarding this to me.)

Hi Everyone! We're back from our vacation, and I just HAVE to tell you ALL about this new ship we've just bought! We JUST picked it up from the dealer out on at the Federation Navy Assembly Plant out on Eglennaert 1, Moon 14! It's just FABOO! Here's a quick picture of it while we were out taking our test flight!

ANYWAY, once we picked it up, we just HAD to go for a cruise. Oh! I almost forgot, didn't even say what it was! It's an, hang on, let me get the brochure and make sure I get it JUST right. Ah! It's a... lessee... a "Gallente 'Catalyst' class Destroyer"! There's a whole bunch of babble here about being 'well suited for both skirmish warfare and fleet support', and something about 'anti-frigate platforms', but we just HAD to get it because it has the most AMAZING wallpaper in it. You all just HAVE to come out and fly around with us! We'll just take a quicky jaunt down to the Dairy Queen and be the ENVY of all the other ships!

Listen to me prattle on! Let me share some more pictures. Here's a pic when we went out to watch the sunrise! There was this silly little machine in the way though, we had to go around it. Something about a 'sedintary mum' or a 'gentry gun' or something like that. But gosh, it was awkward! Durned near ran into the thing! Don't know why they litter the space with them, someone should do something about it!

And speaking of annoyances! At one point, we flew by the Serpenti's place, and wouldn't you know it, they had parked their mining barge in front of our house again! We've told them and told them and told them that this is OUR space, and they have no right parking their big ole smelly barge near us! We paid good money for this space, and they should stay in their own area! Well, the last time this happened, we told them we'd show them what for! So little Bobbie got out the manual - you know, he's SUCH a smart boy! And then we heard this big booming noise! Well wouldn't you know it, Bobbie unloaded a couple railgun charges right into the Serpenti's garage! We always knew he'd do well!

Anyway, we're off to the movies now. This puppy'll sure turn heads when we pull into the drive in, that's for sure! Tah tah for now!

Friendzzzz, open our K&R to page 32, psalm 12. Today we shall recite from the Book of Why, wherein all manner of faults in life are exposed for cleansing...

Let us begin...

• Why... did my MythTV primary volume kick the bucket just at the point where I'm ready to start working on some code to interract with it? We thank the powers at Maxtor for not taking the half a terabyte of other storage with it during it's death throws. Amen.
• Why... does the Linux kernel decide to number ethernet ports, particularly wireless ethernet ports, in a totally arbitrary way? Booting up may provide us with the mysteries of eth1, or perhaps today it's eth2, or even something like eth1_someoddtext. Amen.
• Why... is the Eclipse WTP project, such an awesomely wonderful and fantastic environment, be occasionally revealing itself as 'not -quite- 100% stable', particularly when I'm in the middle of convincing a client to use it? Amen.
• Why... does the Bluetooth stack on the Treo 650 suck so bad? Simple requests for OBEX services cause the phone to crash and reboot. Connections to it are spotty at best, and it offers NO services up to a remote requestor. Makes it very hard to say "Please get my photos off my phone." It is safe to note that almost every other Bluetooth phone on the market today at least provides a Bluetooth FTP service. The Treo doesn't even have decency to say "no services", it simply drops the connection. Amen, dammit.
• Why... is there no easy way to hit the Tab key in Firefox in a textarea, and have it generate a Tab? Amen.

We shall ponder these life puzzles as we ommm around the coffeemaker and await enlightenment via it's gurgly goodness.

In random clickingness, I came across 'the best of craigslist', which offered up this particular rant from a grocery bagging girl in Portland...

A choice tidbit...

Paper or plastic- it's not a difficult decision. Choose quickly, and please for the love of all that is good, do not change your mind mid-bagging. Not only is it a huge pain for me, but inconveniences others waiting in line.

Edit: Be sure to check Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Craig.

Found on bash.org :

"I have a sore throat."
2000 BC : "eat this root"
1200 AD : "That root is heathen, say this prayer."
1500 AD : "That prayer is superstition, drink this elixir."
1800 AD : "That elixir is snake oil, Take this pill."
1900 AD : "That pill is ineffective, Take this antibiotic."
2000 AD : "That antibiotic is artificial, Here why dont you eat this root."

My wife and her family introduced me what apparently originated as a radio announcers test; the "One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four limericking oysters..." etc etc etc...

On a local list I'm on, a fellow has posted a version he remembers from some late night convention chitchatting. I thought it was enough of a hoot to post. He can't remember the originators, but it came together 'somewhere in the late 80's or early 90's'...

One Cat
Two Kittens
Three Rat Shack Salesmen
Four Blue Polyester Power Suits
Five Pairs of Pink Painted Plastic Chopsticks
Six Sets of Genuine Leather Seatcovers for Honda Civics
Seven Shrieking Skinhead Shoplifters, Shamelessly Shanghaiing Shiitake Mushrooms
Eight Inspective Dejected Detectives, Hurling Invective Receptive to Corruption AND
GRAFT
Nine GrecoRoman Endocrinologists, Detained in a Dark Alley for impersonating Clogged
Saxophones. BADLY.
Ten Bewitched and Befuddled Bobblers Blindly Babbling Blank Verse and Meaningless
Metaphors without regard for the US RDA.
Eleven Elements of Doubt, fiendishly induced by the exchange of syllables, (the introduction
of?) ex-ex-extra phonemes, and the addition of an entire consituent.

I'll be hopping a plane down to Tampa this evening to spend a few days with mom, who is going in for surgery tomorrow to repair an aortic aneurysm. I'll be gone until Friday, but should be available off and through the next few days, either from the hotel or maybe from a hospital room? Dunno :)

The replacement Treo should be here this morning, so I'll have plenty of connectivity and entertainment that way. Might be time to test out that moblogging functionality I've been considering.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal roundup of the late night comedy commentary:

Jon Stewart: "I'm joined now by our own vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst, Rob Corddry. Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?

Rob Corddry: "Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush.

"And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face."

Jon Stewart: "But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, in a post-9-11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak."

Jon Stewart: "That's horrible."

Rob Corddry: "Look, the mere fact that we're even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know 'how' we're hunting them. I'm sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little 'covey' of theirs.

Jon Stewart: "I'm not sure birds can laugh, Rob."

Rob Corddry: "Well, whatever it is they do … coo .. they're cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.

Jon Stewart: "Okay, well, on a purely human level, is the vice president at least sorry?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, what difference does it make? The bullets are already in this man's face. Let's move forward across party lines as a people … to get him some sort of mask."

Thanks to aqeldroma for the pointer.

As reported on their website Improv Everywhere staged an event and... :

Today's No Pants was halted by the cops about halfway through. One frustrated cop freaked out and called in 25 more. 8 were ticketed and summonsed to court, 6 of the 8 were handcuffed and traveled in a police van to a precinct. Everyone has been released and is fine. More info as it develops. Keep checking this page, and the comments below for updates from everyone involved.

There's a wonderful Flickr photo set available.

I'm still wondering what they were actually arrested for.

Okay, this is really funny. LJ had a couple hax0rz playing around with authentication over the past week or so, and this fellow has documented it in an amusing way.

Thanks to Lisa for the pointer.

Remember that 'Fall' flash animation a while back? Well, someone's hacked it up a bit to let you watch your favorite world leader tumble through random painful contortions. Fun for the whole family!

Consumer watch alert!

Unscrupulous dealers are trying to foist unofficial Mini Cooper lookalikes on an uninformed public! If you're considering purchasing a new or used Mini, it's important to review this site to make sure you don't fall victim to this scam!

Thanks to Adam and mort for the pointer.

A month or two ago, I came across Carl and Phil: Monkey Ninjas and wrote about it. I dropped Devadas George, the creator of the series, a note asking if he'd like to do an interview. Happily he agreed!

Break out the bandanas and eyepatches! A reminder that tomorrow (September 19th) is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Remember to brush up on your Pirate Vocabulary!

(And if you want to hear quality PirateSpeak, I played a pirate in a radio comedy called "The Fantastic Fate of Frederick Farnsworth the Fifth". You can hear some of the choice bits on my Voiceover site, including the reason pirates say "Arrr!" all the time.

This is just too funny. A fellow has, in full and complete detail, documented all the Dr. Pepper clones he could find. Sample cans and pictures and taste-tests and everything.

As a long time Dr Pepper fan, I was shocked to hear that he ranked Mr. Pibb (the most popular Dr Pepper clone) only 2 out of 5 pepper points. It's one of the few that is regularly on tap around here in the northeast.

Anyway, check out FakeDrPepper.com.

Okay, okay, I admit it. I like going to Chuck E. Cheeses with Zach on occasion. It helps that there's an open access point nearby. I get to geek on the laptop, Zach gets to play skee ball and run around in the hamster tubes.

I chanced to catch site of a video on their ubiquitous monitors. A very silly and somehwat simplistic animated piece called "Carl and Phil - Monkey Ninjas!. It was silly enough for me to remember to look it up when I got home.

Well worth watching a couple of these.

Someday, I'm going to sit down in a diner, and this is going to happen to me.

Really. There is no bounds the level of surreality you find in american eateries.

I don't know who Mr. Welch is, or who theglen is, but this is one of the funniest lists I've seen in a while. Anyone who has ever done ANY gaming, prepare to not get anything done for the next 20 minutes or so.

The list.

Can someone explain this to me?

Some bright marketer somewhere decided that shopping mall revenues weren't high enough. In a burst of creativity, and noting all that wasted empty space in the middle of the halls (never mind those pesky shoppers), it was decided to populate this space with oh so charming pushcarts, just like those lovely street vendors we think we're all so fond of.

Well, the pushcarts turned into kiosks, and the kiosks turned into little stores. Somewhere along the line those stores became the haven of cell phone vendors. Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, Nextel - they're all there, several times over. Right next to each other. Where one could easily tag the other with a spitball.

So in this rich capitalistic cutthroat environment, the kiosk owners decided it wasn't enough to let the customers come to the vendors. Since they had already moved the more obnoxious sales droids out of the small stores into the kiosks, the droids still weren't satisfied. Now they needed to accost walkers-by with questions about their cell phone service.

Now, see, here's where I lose it. I go to the mall to shop. Sometimes to get something to eat. If I'm interested in buying something, I will go into the store, or stop by the kiosk. If I'm walking by, and desperately avoiding eye contact with the salesperson, and perhaps even talking with my son running along side me, what POSSIBLE reasoning would lead you to decide to interrupt me with "Sir, may I ask you a question?"

Even worse, these freaks are preying on the social expectation that it's considered rude say "No" in response to that. My answer to this is, fuck it, THEY'VE already broken the personal space barrier and intruded into my world, when I expressed absolutely no interest in their product or their services, and THEY are expecting me to defend myself as to why I am not interested in their product.

It really makes me consider NOT going to a mall because of these bozos. By the design of these space, I have no option other than to walk those halls to do my shopping there. What's next, someone physically stopping you and not letting you pass until you prove you cannot possibly afford what they're selling? How about the old vacuum cleaner tactic of spraying dirt on you so they can demonstrate what a cool cleaner they have.

And the malls wonder why retail sales are down, and online sales are up. Hey malls, here's a prime example. If you make the shopping experience more annoying, people will stop coming to the malls.

A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard

Seen on GeekoftheDay.com.

Jon Carroll, of the SF Chronicle posted an 'anonymous mail' he purportedly received from the Unitarian Jihad.

These guys mean business. Check out some of the choice quotes:

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States. We are Unitarian Jihad. There is only God, unless there is more than one God. The vote of our God subcommittee is 10-8 in favor of one God, with two abstentions. Brother Flaming Sword of Moderation noted the possibility of there being no God at all, and his objection was noted with love by the secretary.

Note - no Unitarians were harmed in the creation of this blog posting.

Mark A writes up a great review of some Pabst Blue Ribbon someone left over at his party...

This is a "crisp, clean" beer, which is a euphemism indicating that it has almost no flavor whatsoever. The back-taste is a bit disturbing, hinting lightly of skunk cabbage and Wonder Bread. It's possible that the carbonation was due to the fermentation process, but I can't escape the nagging suspicion that it was added just before canning with an infuser.

For some inexplicable reason, this beer comes in 16 ounce cans, rather than 12 ounce bottles. One theory is that Milwaukee, being situated on a Great Lake and being surrounded by bogs, had extra water that it needed to get rid of. Nonetheless, there is very little hint of swamp, indicating that some decent filtering happened.

I saw this come across a mailing list I'm on, and I asked the author (Bill Yerazunis) if I could re-post. The topic came up with someone who would be sharing space with a dozen or so North Americans shortly, and wanted to know what was socially acceptable behaviour...

1. if it's not yours, don't eat it or drink it.
2. Shower every day. Whether you need it or not. Use soap. And your own towel. same v. toothbrushing. And underwear.
3. clean clothes every day is not *required*, but doesn't hurt. Don't go more than two days on a shirt or three days on pants.
4. Politics are not off limits. One of America's most precious rights is the right to diss the government. The president in particular is fair game.
5. replace the toilet paper.
6. Stay out of rooms whose owners are not there.
7. If you leave a mess, do not be surprised to find the mess placed on your bed. This is the ONE exception to Rule #6.
8. Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.
9. leaving an offering of sweets (especially chocolate) will never get you in trouble. Put a note on it like "Free! Eat!" to assure that Rule #1 will not be assumed.
10. Don't assume ANYTHING about a North American. They are definitely the MOST VARIED population on the planet. Everybody's family is from "somewhere else" (including the Native Americans; they're actually from Siberia). So, if you're worried, ask honestly. Honesty is almost as prized a right as dissing the government. Conversely, don't be offended if honesty is returned, even if the truth is not pleasant.

In a stunning discovery, scientists at European Space Agency monitoring the progress of the SMART-1 lunar survey spacecraft have discovered what appears to be a monument carved in the Pythagoras Crater to Frito Lay's 'Chester the Cheetah' mascot. This stunning discovery was made while reviewing pictures sent back from the probe during its passes over the lunar surface.

The famed cheetah, long thought to be only mildly compelling to intelligent beings outside the age range of 5-12, has apparently had quite a following on Luna, so much so that the occupants carved this huge image for all the cosmos to see.

More details on this story as events warrant!

I love photoblogs. Folks posting or finding pictures, commenting on them, etc. The pages about the bad 70's decorating, the unfortunate foods, all good stuff.

Just found this interesting collection. Some true gems in there. (Warning, some entries aren't suitable for public consumption :)

This is just too good not to share. Folks who read Slashdot have probably already seen this, but there's a series of articles on 1up about a couple kids being sat down in front of some of our old cherished and beloved games and saying what they think of them. Some of my favorite quotes:

When playing the color vector 'Star Wars' game:

Rachel: This looks like a game out of Willy Wonka or something.
Bobby: It's like, "I'm Willy Wonka. I've created a new Star Wars."

When playing the old Atari 'Adventure' game:

Bobby: Stupid duck. I hate the duck. The duck is evil.
Parker: Go left, go left. Grab the arrow. That's the only way you can kill the duck. You have to run that into the duck!

Talking about 'Defender':

EGM: Before this came out in compilations, we used to put quarters in arcade machines.
Parker: You wasted quarters on this?
EGM: Yeah.
Parker: That's so sad.

I don't feel too bad. I've already gotten Zach addicted to things like Pacman, Loderunner, and Tetris 8)

I'm not totally sure why this is on a job search engine site, but this flash-based trebuchet emulator is a lot of fun. It's not as comprehensive as some of the emulators, but it's sort of fun to fling stuff for maximum distance and accuracy.

My best qualifying distance so far is 480, though I did shoot one way past the 'penalty zone', which unfortunately didn't give me a distance :(

Thanks to Cathy for the link.

Yiddish Literature with Dick and Jane (Flash required).

Thanks to Xilet for this pointer...

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The Great American Experiment

(Thanks to Adam Hirsch for this)

Good stuff: Sinfest for 9/30/04

For those who have to endure the NYC Subway preachers, this woman, I think, took the only response that was appropriate.

"“If you all don’t lower your voices and cease calling me Satan, I will have to sing show tunes.”

One of our housecats, Zhivago, hopped up on my desk a few minutes ago, turned in circles a few times, and plopped down on the keyboard to 'endor', the machine I'm building for CONGO work. The screen beeped a few times, fine, no harm there. Then I heard the unmistakable 'clunk' of a monitor changing sync rates.

Twice.

Zhivago, while makin muffins on the keyboard, managed to key the sequence that causes X-windows to change resolution... Control-Alt-+.

I removed the keyboard from under the cat, only causing a slight pause in the purring, and put it aside. Zhivago remains, at this moment, in the middle of my desk.

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to the spirit of international harmony.

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

A president lying about a blowjob is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's cocaine conviction is none of our business.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness, and you need our prayers for your recovery.

You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they are allowed to adopt.

What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

Via MadScience who got it via born_stubborn

I'm not even going to post it here, ya'll have to click for it...

This is simply brilliant. Thanks to Ellen for the pointer.

(the hero, Torg, talking to a freshy-aquired talking demon-killing sword)...

"Sword, can you kill a demon lord?"

"With you wielding me? I think the odds are best described as 'yikes!'"

From Sluggy Freelance

I try to keep up on websites that publish regular columns or articles that help shine the light of reason into the cold dark void of societal logic. Two in particular are favorites. The first of course is Snopes.com, which I'm sure -everyone- who reads my blog knows about, has bookmarked, and visit every few days, right? Their 'Whats new' column is a great way to stay on top of the latest fad-like rumors flying around the net (Did you know that the reason Taco Bell stopped the little dog commercials was because the dog had been run over by a camera crane? (hint, FALSE).

The other site is James Randi's site, which has a weekly update on false mysticism, tv psychics, money scams and a slew of other examples of con artists bilking gullible people out of their hard earned cash.

Occasionally though they come up with some really fun ones. The July 2nd column includes a link to, are you ready for this? The site Our Hollow Earth in which they state " My study of gravity indicates that our earth as well as all planets are actually hollow. " But wait, there's more! They're mounting an expedition to the North Pole where there's an opening (there has to be, because the Voyager spacecraft found that all the outer planets "emit more energy than they receive from the sun. Radiation is emited from their polar openings from their inner suns to light up auroras over their poles just like our inner sun does here on earth.")

Well there you have it folks. Don't dig that garden too deep, you might slip right through.

It's an exciting new development in Christian Entertainment!

Thanks to boingboing

Pointer gleaned from another list...

Childless couple told to try sex

"A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of
marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having
sex."

When you want to get rid of something, and you really want to say what you think about the item. This poor fellow has a router table he doesn't think much of.

"This Ryobi router table is the worst thing I've ever spent money on. Period. I've wasted money on a lot of things in my life: women, cars, other things I didn't need, you name it, but I've never felt like I totally 100% wasted my money on something until I bought this router table. I've wasted money, but I normally got some sort of satisfaction out of it, no matter how small, I got something out of it This is the most worthless piece of crap item I have ever had the displeasure of working with in my life. I have much more colorful ways of describing this but I realize that there may be some kids that will read this so I will try to keep it PG"

Someone had posted this to an IRC channel I was on, so I tracked down the original posting. It's a summary of the people you're likely to meet at a science fiction convention

Okay, how many people does this strip resonate with? Cmon, you know it's true.

If so, it may be time for therapy.
DorkTower's latest comic regarding blogging.

Something passed along on the Techno-Fandom mailing lists.

Note carefully the labelling of the jacks on the back of this pre-amp.

Lifted from Ascription is an anathema to any enthusiasm...

Apparently this is a short animation from Sheep Films.

Remember the days when people wrote long involved wonderful stories and posted them on usenet? One just showed up on the slashdot archives:

An apocryphal story from 1987 regarding DEC VAXen, IBM server rooms, and large financial organizations.

Make sure you read the comments below it for full attribution.

Found via Boston-Online. When yer out having fun, make sure you DON'T drop your cellphone in a creative location, because someone will pick it up and call your wife.

Always neat to poke fun at the LJ community :)

Ha, suddenly thought you were reading Ben's Livejournal, weren't you? Neener!

For some reason my favorite pair of sweatpants has gone missing for the last month or so. Since I'm working from home a lot of the time now, the requirement for business dress is lowered a bunch. Nothing like dropping the morning commute from an hour and a half to 15 seconds!

Anyway, my sweatpants seem to have returned from some bizarre nether region, and I am happily re-comfied. (Actually, once my friend and I made up the theory that this is exactly what Saturns rings are made out of. When you lose something you just had, it's actually warped out to Saturn for a little bit, then will zip back and appear under your chair or behind the door or something like that. This works for pencils, books, carkeys, and lost pants apparently).

Cows with guns!