Confusion

Something happened today and my heads been going in circles. I’m confused. So confused that I’ve been doing stuff out of order. Like washing my face first before shampooing my hair. Or watering front door plant before back porch plant. Or almost forgetting to put on my shoes before going outside to get my mail, and I was even contemplating on go barefoot and just endure the pain. Why am I confused?!?!


Random Crap:

Weird Al – Behind the Scenes of “White and Nerdy” (from Digg) – Go behind the scenes of Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy” video from his new album Straight Outta Lynwood, in stores now.

How to Crap All Over a Product Launch, by Microsoft Corp. (from Digg) – what he says isn’t that interesting, but it did tell me there are Pink Zunes out there. According to Engadget, So as we understand it, apparently Microsoft secretly slipped 100 hot pink (or shall we say, magenta?) Zunes into the retail market for purchase, where only especially eagle-eyed buyers would notice what they were getting before taking it home and opening up their rather eye-catching player. (For lawsuit’s sake, it’s in the fine print on the bottom of the box.) In fact, one’s on sale on eBay right now: Microsoft Zune.. Pink Limited Edition #8 of 100 NIB and one sold for $920.

pink zune
(picture courtesy of Endgadget)

Live Action Hamster Videogame (from Cari) – Poor little hamster. He’s stuck in a video game. Don’t worry, he wins. (OMG SPOILER.) Hamster didn’t seem to be having fun. Would’ve been neat if he got little treats on the way, sorta like the little apples Yoshi gets.

Carved Crayons (from Digg) – a bunch of neat carvings made using crayon sticks by Pete Goldlust.

Bottled MusicA guy plays music on bottles with rollerblades. Was pondering if this was good enough to be posted, but decided it was worth showing. Not really that creative or new, but still somewhat cool where a guy rollerblades down the street with glass bottles filled with different amounts of liquid to make different sounds. On each skate, he puts a stick like thingy which hits the bottles as he skates down.

MS Paint God (from Derek) – Getting this good with MS Paint is like becoming a world famous kazoo player. Just an amazing job what someone can do with just MS Paint! I don’t know what car that is, but it’s very sweet looking.

Was watching the latest episode of Kanon and the fox is so cute! You can watch the video here: Kanon – Makoto Fox.

Case Closed? (from Digg) – An Extra Shift Led to a Terrifying Strip Search, But the Suspect Was Set Free – It was the shocking story — and unbelievable surveillance video — that riveted the nation. A young McDonald’s employee humiliated, forced to strip and then to perform a sexual act in the back office, during her work day. Wow, I can’t believe this happened… Go watch the video if you’re too lazy to read the article.

Paintball Headshot (from Digg) – This guy got PWNED!!!

Beware of the fungi! (from Digg) – When will we have to report on our spore infected fellow man? Scenes taken from Planet Earth episode 8. From the production info: “From the creators of BLUE PLANET comes this epic depiction of life on Earth. PLANET EARTH was a mammoth undertaking and was the result of more than 2000 days of production, filmed across 200 different locations around the world.” Remember when your parents told you not to eat the seeds of the fruit, or else you might grow a watermelon on your head? Well, imagine if a fungi killed you and then grew out from your head.

Interview Disaster Special (from Digg) – (NOT WORK SAFE!) I have conducted a series of interviews with adult industry figures. These interviews did not go well and they probably represent the last failed attempt at something even approaching journalism of my entire career. Here’s Part II if you’re interested in reading. It reminds me of Blood Ninja, but with porn stars.

New Eyeglasses

So I picked up my new glasses this weekend and have been dizzy for the pass few days, though I am starting to get use to it. It’s like a see the world in 3D now where things just sorta jump out at me. It could also be the fact now both eyes have the same clarity and I actually see in better stereo now.

Anyway, here’s what they look like:

geoffrey beene bacchus gunmetal 140geoffrey beene bacchus gunmetal 140

Speaking of which, my eye problem seems to have gone away. The tired eyes that is. It could be the fact that I used “Refresh Tears” for a week or so, but I really think it’s because I stopped playing Kameo.


Random Crap:

Today’s Japanese term is 熱い (atsui) and 寒い (samui) which mean hot and cold respectively. Don’t like the extremes? Then you can use 安宅ぃ (atakai) – warm. Interestingly enough, there’s a another homonyms for 熱い (atsui) which also means hot: 暑い – hot; warm; The former (熱い) refers to hot to touch. The latter 暑い refers to hot/warm weather. As for 寒い (samui), that also refers to weather. If you want to say something is cold (like an ice cube), you’ll use 冷や (hiya).

Zamzar (from RayAlome) – It’s a free online file conversion (i.e. one image format to another, or one video format to another). There’s an 100MB upload cap at which point they’ll convert it. After the conversion is complete, it’ll email you a link to download the conversion. I personally haven’t tried it, but it sounds like a neat service, though for video and image conversions, I generally prefer to do it myself as I can control the quality and with free tools like IrfanView and VirtualDub, this becomes rather easy. You can see their entire list of supported file types here.

NBC has just aired the last episode of Heroes for the time being. It was a good final episode, but as the preview indicated, it’ll be opening a bunch of new cliffhangers. They decided to take a break mid-season and resume in mid-January. Unfortunately, they’ll be competing with 24 at that time, but I guess I can watch both. NBC has decided to post all 11 episodes of the series up to watch online, so if you missed one and don’t mind watching some ads, go for it.

Mad TV – Crista’s Black Friday (from Digg) – Keegan-Michael Key opens the show, then a wounded Crista Flanagan stumbles on stage with blood splattered all over her body. Watch to find out what happens. From Season 12, Episode 7. BTW, video looks more sharp with the smaller window because that’s the original size.

Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows Review (from Digg) – Rock your wireless 360 pads on the PC. The newest piece of the ‘Games For Windows’ puzzle. I received a Xbox 360 newsletter recently with a whole bunch of new wireless gadgets like the driving wheel and the headset. I didn’t pay much attention to it until I read this review today. They made a Xbox 360™ Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows® that allows you to use your Xbox 360 controllers on your PC!!! How cool is that!

Halo 3 Sixty-Second Trailer (from Digg) – Last week we announced that Microsoft and Bungie were set to debut the latest trailer for Halo 3 during ESPN’s Monday Night Football on December 4th and tonight we managed to capture the commercial as it aired shortly after the broadcast started. As always, commercials are very pretty. Though it did get me wondering if they introduced the new can-o-shield or not. That’d be neat!

CanvasPaint (from Digg) – A near pixel-perfect copy of Microsoft Paint in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, using the <canvas> tag as specified by WHATWG and supported by Safari 1.3, Firefox 1.5 and Opera 9. This web app is not authorized by, supported by or in any way affiliated with Microsoft. Interesting idea. First word processors and spreadsheets, now paint!

Revolution – A Response To Dove Evolution (Digg) – Our take on the Dove Evolution commercial that has been circulating on the internet. Quite a funny parody of the Dove Campaign for Beauty.

Bus shelters get cookie scentHoping to stir up thirst for milk, officials installed advertisements in several San Francisco bus shelters on Monday that give off the scent of freshly baked cookies. … The effort at five bus shelters is part of a campaign cooked up by the California Milk Processor Board, whose iconic “Got Milk?” campaign has adorned famous figures from around the world with milk moustaches for 13 years. Clever!

Zudeo (from Digg) – Another video competitor has entered the market. Zudeo works in conjuction with Azureus, the bittorrent client. The most interesting thing is that it shares HD content. Ever thought the quality of YouTube videos or even Google videos were quite pixelated and subpar, well Zudeo has the answer. And to conserve on bandwidth bills, it plans of using bittorrent to share these HD videos, which is rather ingenious. Unfortunately, you have to use their client, and I’ve decided against Azureus after it started using up hundreds of megs of RAM.

Pablo Francisco: Ouch! Live From San Jose

I’ve always been of Pablo Francisco ever since I first saw his skit on Comedy Central. He actually performed in Berkeley my senior year, but I didn’t missed his show. So far besides his comedy central skit, he’s also released his performance in Irvine: Pablo Francisco – Bits And Pieces: Live From Orange County, which were mostly repeat of jokes from his Comedy Central stand-up. However, this new performance in San Jose has a completely new set of jokes.

IMDb: 7.1/10 (38 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: Yahoo! Users: A
Amazon.com DVD
MY RATING: 8/10

pablo francisco: ouch! live from san jose dvd cover

He goes on making fun of San Francisco (since this is San Jose), Jackie Chan, William Hung, Brokeback Mountain, Ecstacy, Grand Theft Auto, and much more! Jokes were hilarious. I thought I’d share the William Hung clip:
pablo francsico - ouch! - william hung

The Prestige

Saw this movie with CDMCC a weekend or two ago. Movie turned out to be really good. Although I was disappointed with one thing and that’s why I gave it an 8 instead of a 9. You’ll have to read the spoilers section you want to find out what. Movie was done really well and I’ve always been a fan of magic tricks, so that made it even better.

Official Site
IMDb: 8.1/10 (17,081 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B / Yahoo! Users:B+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 73% / Average Rating: 7.1/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com Showtimes
Amazon.com Soundtrack
MY RATING: 8/10

the prestige posterthe prestige posterthe prestige posterthe prestige posterthe prestige posterthe prestige posterthe prestige poster

Spoilers: (Show)

An Inconvenient Truth

Watched this documentary awhile back. Pretty informative for those who don’t know much about global warming. For me, it was just interesting at how extreme the climate’s gotten. Al Gore does a pretty good job presenting the information, but with most documentaries, it’s very one sided and doesn’t really tell enough of the other side, although I agree with most things he said.

Al Gore mentions about corporate responsibility and I see that as somewhat of a dilemma. The CEO of Timberland was interviewed on The Colbert Report awhile back and he was saying how a company could help make shareholders money AND be environmental friendly at the same time. Cobert of course replied with something like can’t you help make shareholders more money by not being as environmental friendly? And that’s just the truth. There’s no reason besides maybe ethical/moral obligation to be environmental friendly, not unless cost of being environmental unfriendly exceeds the cost of being friendly to it. We can wait around for people to buy products which are environmental friendly, but seeing how masses of people still shop at Walmart, most people are more money conscience, then moral conscience, and they probably won’t change their mind until they see undeniable proof which at that point would be probably too late.

Al Gore argues that the pollution that is released, the environmental damage that is caused, should not allowed without repercussion. The fact is the air and water that is polluted and the forests that are destroyed don’t just belong to the corporations. They belong to everyone. So tax the corporations that pollute based on how much pollution they produce and how much it’ll take to clean it up. At that point, their obligations to their shareholders may actually have to switch over to a more green process.

Official Site
IMDb: 8.3/10 (7,387 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B+ / Yahoo! Users: B
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 93% / Average Rating 7.7/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Unbox Digital Download
MY RATING: 7/10

an inconvenient truth posteran inconvenient truth poster

There’s really no spoilers for this movie.

The Man Rules

The MAN Rules (from MS newsgroup)

Finally, the guys’ side of the story.
We always hear “the rules”
From the female side.

Now here are the rules from the male side.
These are our rules!
Please note.. these are all numbered “1”
ON PURPOSE!

1. Men are NOT mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat.
You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down.
We need it up, you need it down.
You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides.
Let it be.

1. Shopping is NOT a sport.
And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want.
Let us be clear on this one:
Subtle hints do not work!
Strong hints do not work!
Obvious hints do not work!
Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do.
Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a Problem.
See a doctor.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument.
In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 Days.

1. If you won’t dress like the Victoria ‘s Secret girls, don’t Expect us to act like soap opera guys.

1. If you think you’re fat, you probably are.
Don’t ask us.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one

1. You can either ask us to do something
Or tell us how you want it done.
Not both.
If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings.
Peach, for example, is a fruit, not A color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched.
We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say “nothing,” We will act like nothing’s wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, Expect an answer you don’t want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine…Really.

1. Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, the shotgun formation, or golf.

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape. Round Is a shape!

Thank you for reading this.
Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight;

But did you know men really don’t mind that? It’s like camping.

Pass this to as many men as you can –
to give them a laugh.

Pass this to as many women as you can –
to give them a bigger laugh

Xbox 360 Platinum for $344.xx shipped!

Unless you live in Utah or wherever Overstock.com is located.

Just saw this deal on SD: 15% off Coupon + $1 Shipping @ Overstock: Xbox 360 Platinum $344

15% Off Discount
After clicking on the above link, you’ll notice the top of that page says: Your 15% Coupon has been ACTIVATED!

Next, add the Xbox 360 Platinum (with Hardrive) to you cart.

The 15% Off discount only works if you add a non-media item to your order and the people have suggested this nifty item: HP Jornada 520/540 iPAQ Leather Pouch Case for $5.00.

Although your shopping cart page may look like this (incorrect coupon amount):

Subtotal: $403.99
Coupons: – $52.52
Standard Shipping: FREE
Total: $351.47

When you begin to checkout, your total should look like this in the end:

Subtotal: $403.99
Coupons: – $60.60
Shipping Charge:* $0.00
Tax: $0.00
Grand Total: $343.39

The thread mentions shipping is $1, hence the $344.xx, so I’m not sure if you’ll be getting free shipping too. My account might be registered as part of their “O Club”, which they were giving away for free one day.

So the final total is $398.99 (Xbox 360) + $5.00 (leather pouch) – $60.60 (15% off) + $1.00 (shipping) = $344.39 shipped! Plus the fact there’s no taxes (which adds on another $30+ for most people).

I got in on a similar deal 5 months ago for $342.xx, but without the leather pouch, though I don’t think I’m missing much.

Enjoy!

Pocketbike Racer

So I went to Burger King today again to get my 2nd Xbox 360 game: Pocketbike Racer. The game supports up to 4 players on 1 console and up to 8 players on Xbox Live. Apparently, all these games work on the original Xbox too, which I found rather interesting.

It’s a lot like Mario Kart, much more than I originally imagined. Of course it’s not as pretty or as cute, might even be a bit scary and dark given “the King” is there. Basically, you drive around on these pocket bikes and there’s 3 types of bikes to choose from: 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc (similar to Mario Kart). There’s also 4 game types to choose from:

  • Standard Race
  • Battle Royale
  • Cone Trial
  • Ultimate Time Trial

Standard Race is pretty simple. You race with 7 other competitors to see who wins. Along the way, you can increase your boost bar by touching these lighted areas. There’s no box you break to get specials, but as you charge your boost bar, you can exchange them for things such as boost, shield, bombs, firecrackers, rockets, and the disruptor (the thing that got me; which is reversing all the controls).

Battle Royale sounds just like the movie, where you go around and blow up opponents.

Cone Trial is where you skillfully go around cones I guess…

Ultimate Time Trial… I don’t have to explain this right?

Most of the stuff are still locked, but the 10 minutes I spent playing it, I found it rather enjoyable.

I’m not sure if I’ll go back and get the final game: Sneak King. It just doesn’t sound that fun, sneaking up to people to give them a burger, then sneaking away. Plus the fact that means I’ll have to eat another value meal from Burger King.

Parabellum Trailer

My friend Schwartz is working on a new short film called Parabellum. Director of another awesome short film: Beimo, this one’s about the mafia. I won’t say too much as the final edit of the film hasn’t completed yet, but for now, you can watch the trailer. Schwartz must have his contacts cause he even got the winner of Chinatown’s pageant to play the leading actress in this film, and she’s really good looking. 😉

* Parabellum (or para bellum) is Latin for “ready for war”.

I just realized this is probably based off Parabellum – Episode 1, though I’m sort of confused where this story lies now. His girlfriend is not the same person, though the main character is. Episode 1 took a very light focus and was even somewhat funny. This new one that he’s making is pretty much serious all the way through, even somewhat sad.

You can also check out his other videos at What The Film.

Random Crap:

Today’s Japanese term is: 暗部 (anbu) which means the dark side, but is commonly used in anime to refer to the special group of shadow warriors, super skilled and hardly ever seen.

Amazing flame fractals take your breath away (from Digg) – Witness the beauty and elegance of mathematics with 50 breathtaking fractals. Webshots member rajah created these Fractal Flames with Apophysis–a freeware Windows application with which you can design and render fractal flames. According to http://apophysis.wikispaces.com/ and http://www.flam3.com/, Fractal Flames were created by Scott Draves in 1992 and are an “extension of the iterated function system class of fractals”. They’re really pretty!

(NOT WORK SAFE!) With articles like Blowjobs as Comparative Currency (from Digg) and Virtual Sex in Second Life (from Digg), no wonder people are addicted to Second Life. From my limited sample set I worked out that the Average SL-QBJ (Second Life – Quick Blow Job) rate is about L$360. Which if I have my sums right is about $1.5.

Great Cardtrick! (from Digg) – learn a good cardtrick, and amaze your friends 😉 Haha. I remember watching this card trick on TVB and remember figuring out exactly how the trick worked. It’s been too long though.

Olbermann’s Special Comment on Gingrich: “We fight for liberty by having more liberty and not less” (from Digg) – Tonight, Keith took on Newt Gingrich’s controversial remarks from earlier this week where he suggested we re-think free speech as we know it in order to effectively combat the threat of terrorism. Needless to say, Keith — like any true American — took offense to this and didn’t hold back.. I’m starting to really like this Keith guy. Every broadcast of his that I’ve watched, I almost totally agree with. You can also watch the video here.

Seagate CEO: I help people “watch porn” (from Digg) – Not so with Bill Watkins, the mercurial, salty-mouthed Texan who runs the $15 billion hard-drive king Seagate Technology. At a San Francisco dinner on Tuesday evening, he was candid about his company’s ultimate mission: “Let’s face it, we’re not changing the world. We’re building a product that helps people buy more crap – and watch porn. He’s so right! Shoot! *whistles* I take the 5th.

Map (from Digg) – This guy builds one of those Google Map red balloons that pop up when you search for addresses or businesses and has temporarily placed it in front of what looks like a dormitory or apartment complex. Hopefully when Google’s images get refreshed next time, it’ll have this in it. He also has some other interesting projects.

Downloading Super Mario Brothers on the Wii (from Digg) – Straight from the Virtual Console onto the Wii. Apparently Super Mario Bros. is available on the Virtual Console for the Wii in Japan. Still no Super Mario Bros. 3 yet or Super Mario World (my 2 favorite Super Mario games). Watching the video, I totally forgot about that hidden 1-Up mushroom. Apparently Japan also has Super Mario 64 available too.

the return to abalakin
The Return To Abalakin – Alexander Preuss (from Digg)

After searching for the artist, I found this thread: THE RETURN TO ABALAKIN :: PART I, Alexander Preuss (3D). He also has other renderings and zoom-ups of this futuristic looking society. The artist also has a nifty looking homepage displaying other interesting artworks.

Teen crashes car after hearing doll cryA startled 17-year-old girl swerved her car into a freeway guardrail and slammed into a pickup truck after the realistic-sounding baby doll in her care suddenly began to cry. The teenager had just picked up the doll as part of a school project on responsible parenting minutes before the accident occurred Tuesday on I-580, said Steve Creel, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol. … No one was seriously injured in the crash, but the CHP will pursue charges because the girl was driving without a license, he said. I like how they write up this whole story about a doll causing the girl to crash the car, when what the problem really is is the fact she was driving without a license.

NY cracks down on illegal mystery meatsWhen a food safety inspector walked into a market in Queens, he noticed the store had an interesting special posted on its front window: 12 beefy armadillos. In Brooklyn, inspectors found 15 pounds of iguana meat at a West Indian market and 200 pounds of cow lungs for sale at another market. At a West African grocery in Manhattan, the store was selling smoked rodent meat from a refrigerated display case. An inspector quickly seized a couple pounds of it. Yummy.

Out of CTRL – I thought this was a funny comic strip as I’ve always wanted to CTRL+Z (undo) at certain parts in my life, and I don’t blame unprepared parents praying for that feature.

Free Movies from AOL Video

Apparently AOL Video is trying to promote their video download service by giving away 30+ videos on Saturday, December 2, 2006. Unfortunately I gave up after I failed 2 of their requirements. First it didn’t support Firefox, so I swapped over to IE and tried again. I thought they’re probably going to install some ActiveX control, but decided to give it a shot anyway. Then it blew up again and said it currently did not support IE7, and suggested I uninstall IE7 and return to IE6 for the time being. I found that hilarious and the fact that they even provided instructions on how to uninstall IE7 and revert back to IE6:

You can also restore the Hi-Q Video Delivery Manager by using the Add or Remove Programs to uninstall IE 7.0 and revert back to IE 6.0.
Simply navigate to Control Panel and select Add or Remove Programs
Select IE 7.0 and click uninstall
The uninstall process should remove IE 7.0 and restore IE 6.0

I guess this is really 1 requirement which is IE6 being the browser, but I’m not going to uninstall IE7 just to watch a few free movies. However, if you’re still interested in their service, go visit their promotion page. The promotion expires on Sunday, December 3, 2006 at 6am ET.

The list of movies include:

  • Nacho Libre
  • The Muppets Take Manhattan
  • Mission Impossible III
  • SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
  • Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
  • Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
  • My Dog Skip
  • Failure To Launch
  • Jack Frost
  • Zoolander
  • Patriot Games
  • National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
  • School of Rock
  • Last Holiday
  • The Perfect Storm
  • Jackass: The Movie
  • Adam Sandler’s: Eight Crazy Nights
  • Rugrats Go Wild
  • Breakfast at Tiffany’s
  • Can’t Hardly Wait
  • Maid in Manhattan
  • Star Trek I: The Motion Picture
  • Men in Black
  • All I Want for Christmas
  • The Prince and Me
  • The Natural
  • Analyze This
  • D.E.B.S.
  • Easy Rider
  • Flatliners
  • White Christmas
  • The Golden Child

The Digg post mentioned Spider-Man 2 was also free, but I wasn’t able to find it.