Games – Page 10 – Krunk4Ever!

December 18, 2006December 18, 2006

Random Crap

School board finds name hard to swallow – Some Bay District School Board members have a problem with the proposed name for a new elementary school — Breakfast Point Academy. … “Pat and I want to know what the mascot is going to be,” Littleton asked. “The Croissants,” Sabiston answered. Board attorney Franklin Harrison suggested “The Biscuits.” Haha!

Wisconsin hunter bags deer with 7 legs – Rick Lisko hunts deer with a bow but got his most unusual one driving his truck down his mile-long driveway. The young buck had nub antlers — and seven legs. Lisko said it also had both male and female reproductive organs. “It was definitely a freak of nature,” Lisko said. “I guess it’s a real rarity.” Unfortunately they didn’t have a good photo of the whole deer.

death kitty and the fat man (from Cari) – the flash was really cute and really sad. though the kitty does becomes Death’s pet in the end, she’s not as cute as before.

What if you took the summary of Star Wars and changed all the character’s names into Harry Potter characters. This is what you’ll get (from Esca):
star wars harry potter exchange essay

Monzy performs at Stanford Univ. (from RayAlome) – Raw footage of a performance that “CS rapper” Monzy gave last summer outside Stanford University’s Computer Science building. This footage was shot for the documentary, NERDCORE FOR LIFE. Nerdcoreforlife.com A very geeky song called Kill -9 (dash nine).

Jerome Murat (from Digg) – A French performing artist that does a really AWESOME show. The music the orchestra is playing along is just pure harmony. He’s painted completely in white with some sort of port and does this little magic show where he has 2 heads and it’s really neat. I haven’t totally figured how he did it yet, but I’m pretty sure a hand was involved with the 2nd head. The solemn facial look and the movements just made the head look really alive. It’s really cute. In the end, he kisses the announcer on the cheek and leaves some white powder on her.

Humming Search – If you have a tune stuck in your head and don’t know what the song is nor the lyrics, you can hum into your microphone and this website claims to be able to tell you what the song is. I haven’t tried it yet, but that’s probably because I don’t have my microphone setup yet. If you try this with success, please let me know.

Dead crows scare away living crows – It’s pretty obvious that dead corpses scare away animals of the same species, unless you eat dead corpses (i.e. vultures), then it’s a happy scene.

Had a car crash? It’s all in the stars, study says – According to a study by InsuranceHotline.com, a Web site that quotes drivers on insurance rates, astrological signs are a significant factor in predicting car accidents. The study, which looked at 100,000 North American drivers’ records from the past six years, puts Libras (born September 23-October 22) followed by Aquarians (January 20-February 18) as the worst offenders for tickets and accidents Leos (July 23-August 22) and then Geminis (May 21-June 20) were found to be the best overall. That’s why my dad drives so slow. As a Capricorn, I’m goal oriented. They’re more concerned about the destination than the journey. They feel that the rules of the road are for other drivers to follow so that Capricorns can get to their destination faster. If insurance companies do use these statistics, go check out what they say about you at Car Carma

Family Guy Spoof on Mad TV (from Digg) – A spoof of Family Guy that aired on Mad TV. Hilarious spoof. They even have a real live version. There’s also Making of Family Guy (from Digg) and I’m surprised that Seth MacFarlane is the voice of so many characters. I was even more surprised the the voice of Meg was the girl from That ’70s Show.

Top 10 Gamer Cakes (from Digg) – As a gamer, I want to show my gamer pride, and what better way to do that than to adorn your celebratory cakes in a gamerly fashion. After hours upon hours of scouring the net, pouring through pages of cakes, skipping over numerous Cakemania images, and whatever the hell this is, I have sorted through the cream of the crop of the geekiest of the geek. Behold mortals, the top 10 gamer cakes. Here’s the story behind the gamer wedding cake: Have Your Games and Eat Them Too! (from Digg)

Gambia gives ex-presidents free holidays for life – The bill entitles ex-leaders of the West African nation to have three cars with drivers and fuel, holidays abroad each year, personal secretaries and 1 million CFA francs (1,000 pounds) a month, courtesy of the state. … A bird lover who often carries a ceremonial sword, Jammeh has said he wants to rule the former British protectorate — where 60 percent of people live on less than $1 (50 pence) a day — for another three decades. Sigh…

Lettuce ladies urge Kazakhs to go vegetarian – Two British animal rights campaigners clad in nothing more than bikinis made of lettuce leaves braved freezing temperatures on Tuesday to urge the people of Kazakhstan to stop eating horses and go vegetarian. You can check out the video: Vegetarian Protestors or check out the gallery of girl protestors from PETA.

Peeking at your gifts? You’re not alone-survey – Can’t resist a quick shake and peep at that present under the Christmas tree? You’re not alone, with a U.S. survey finding one in five adults are present peekers.

Humping Dog (from Digg) – This is Humping Dog. USB MEETS LOVE. Only humping,no function. I like how they censored the USB “connector”.

Greatest Video Game Collection Ever (from Digg) – Now that’s what I call a video game collection. This person probably owns every game, console, and accessory in existence. Lots more pics after the jump. Wowza! It’s like a geek fantasy come true!

Nuckin’ Futs – The JibJab Year in Review (from Digg) – JibJab’s version of all the important events that happened this year. Really funny. All sang by little kids.

Game periods – a comic strip from little gamers explaining why video games and couches were invented.

Srcubs JD’s AirStrike (from Digg) – From the first episode of Season 6. JD on Scrubs describes his “experience” using war terminology. Really hilarious.

iTude 0.1 released (from Digg) – The other night, I awoke with a start: How, if iTunes requires you to authorize your computer with their servers, play iTunes purchased music offline? This guy figures out how to authorize as many computers to play DRMed music purchased from iTMS as you want. I generally wouldn’t care about this, since Apple allows you to authorize up to 5 computers, but they have a broken system where you’re only allowed to reset once a year. In the event your hdd crashes or your library gets corrupted or somehow your computer gets deauthorized, but their main system doesn’t know about it, you’re out one authorized computer. Apparently this trick works in Windows too and the files you need to backup is located in:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\SC Info.

Virtual Reality (from Digg) – (NOT WORK SAFE!) UCB at its finest. Quite a sketch I’ve got to say.

Fast Hands (from Digg) – 2005 National Hammered Dulcimer champion Max Zbiral-Teller plays ‘Apple Juice.’ an original composition at Bard College. You can find this piece on his latest CD ‘Many Tastes Are Loaded,’ at his website www.maxzt.com and shortly on his YouTube page. Pretty neat instrument. Reminds me of those ancient Chinese instruments: the guqin.

Google Blatantly Copies Yahoo!? (from Digg) – Back when IE7 launched, Yahoo! created a customized version and began to market it to our existing IE users. … Today it seems that Google has similar intentions. So similar, that they decided to basically copy our page and slightly Googlify it. If you look, the design, layout, and most of the text are the same! I wonder what was going through the head of the programmer in charge of this… There’s another blog entry in regards to this here: The Race for Optimizing IE7

Street Pranks (from Digg) – Tape Sculpture and Street Installations by Mark Jenkins aka Storker. Courtesy: xmarkjenkinsx.com Really funny situations made with tape sculptures and half mannequins.

XNA Game Studio Express Has Been Released! (from MS newsgroup) – XNA Game Studio Express will allow people to develop games for the Xbox 360. The framework is free, but if you plan on reselling games or want samples to help you start, there’s a subscription fee.

Mythbusters Rube Goldberg machine (from Digg) – The Mythbusters build a rube goldberg machine. Happy Holidays from the Mythbusters. Witness the longest piece to camera in mythbusters history. It’s a Rube Goldberg machine. That should be enough to get you to watch it.

Computer Repair Fraud (from Digg) – Who can you trust to repair your computer these days?

33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names (from Digg) – I’m actually surprised some of these things have names! (i.e. ARMSAYE – The armhole in clothing; MINIMUS – The little finger or toe.)

TelePresence (from Digg) – Visit to Cisco TelePresence demo at Headquarter Campus (San José, CA) by projectteam Fontys University. Wow! What a neat way to hold conferences. One day, every house will have something like this and you won’t even have to go into work.

December 17, 2006

Random Crap

100 things we didn’t know this time last year (from Digg) – some interesting ones include [my comments are in brackets]:

While it’s an offence to drop litter on the pavement, it’s not an offence to throw it over someone’s garden wall. [neat!]
Nicole Kidman is scared of butterflies. “I jump out of planes, I could be covered in cockroaches, I do all sorts of things, but I just don’t like the feel of butterflies’ bodies,” she says.
Until the 1940s rhubarb was considered a vegetable. It became a fruit when US customs officials, baffled by the foreign food, decided it should be classified according to the way it was eaten. [sort of like the anti-tomato]
It’s possible for a human to blow up balloons via the ear. A 55-year-old factory worker from China reportedly discovered 20 years ago that air leaked from his ears, and he can now inflate balloons and blow out candles.
Lionesses like their males to be deep brunettes.
The = sign was invented by 16th Century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing “is equal to” in his equations. He chose the two lines because “noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle”.
“Restaurant” is the most mis-spelled word in search engines.
The name Lego came from two Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”. It also means “I put together” in Latin.
Tactically, the best Monopoly properties to buy are the orange ones: Vine Street, Marlborough Street and Bow Street.
It takes less energy to import a tomato from Spain than to grow them in this country because of the artificial heat needed, according to Defra. [this country referring to UK]
Giant squid eat each other – especially during sex.
First-born children are less creative but more stable, while last-born are more promiscuous, says US research. [what if you were first AND last born (only child)? uncreative, stable, and promiscuous!]
A towel doesn’t legally reserve a sun lounger – and there is nothing in German or Spanish law to stop other holidaymakers removing those left on vacant seats. [and there’s no law against me throwing food in your face, but it’s just common courtesy that I don’t.]
One in six children think that broccoli is a baby tree. [awwwwww]
One in 18 people has a third nipple.
Spanish Flu, the epidemic that killed 50 million people in 1918/9, was known as French Flu in Spain. [it’s not from us, it’s from them!]
The first traffic cones were used in building Preston bypass in the late 1950s, replacing red lantern paraffin burners.

Border Fence Firm Snared for Hiring Illegal Workers (from Digg) – A fence-building company in Southern California agrees to pay nearly $5 million in fines for hiring illegal immigrants. Two executives from the company may also serve jail time. The Golden State Fence Company’s work includes some of the border fence between San Diego and Mexico. Talk about irony…

How long in the freezer does it take to chill a Coke from 89F to 35F? (from Digg) –

That would be about 20-25 minutes in a freezer. If you put it in a bucket of ice, that would halve that time. If you put water in that ice, it’d be cold (+- 5c) enough to drink in about 4-6 minutes, if you put salt in that water, you’d reduce the chill time to just over 2 minutes. Agitating the can in the water, rolling it around, reduces the chill time even more.

The fastest possible way is to grab a CO2 fire extinguisher and unload that sucker on the can.

Whatever you do, do NOT bury the can in sand, pour gasoline on the sand and set the sand on fire. That won’t do anything.

This is all empirically gained evidence, not third party.

SNL – Digital Short – A Special Christmas Box *Uncensored Version* (from RayAlome) – (NOT SAFE FOR WORK!) *Uncensored Version* Something special f *Uncensored Version* Something special for your girlfriend this Christmas Another hilarious song skit from SNL. This time it’s “Dick in the Box”.

GRANDMA’S BOY GAME DEMONIK BEING MADE (from Digg) – They’re actually going to make that game shown on Grandma’s Boy: Demonik into a real Xbox 360 game! I wonder which came first…

Collector pays $2.3M for $1,000 bill – An art collector has paid about $2.3 million for a $1,000 bill printed in 1890, according to the auction house that brokered the transaction between two anonymous private collectors.
$1000 bill

Imagining the Tenth Dimension – A Book by Rob Bryanton (from RayAlome) – If the site is down, you can try the mirror. A very intriguing video of the 10 different dimensions that can be perceived by humans which ultimately leads up to string theory. I don’t agree with the author’s usage of the word dimension 100%, but he does give an easy view of understanding this concept. If you’re interested, you can purchase the book from Amazon.com.

Don’t Forget To Declare Bribes On Your Taxes – When filling out the “other income” section on your taxes this year, there’s a few things you might forget to declare. Like your income from selling drugs. AllFinancialMatters spotted this while cruising the this years IRS FAQ.

Bribes. If you receive a bribe, include it in your income.

Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner.

Kickbacks. You must include kickbacks, side commissions, push money, or similar payments you receive in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040), if from your self-employment activity.

Illegal income. Illegal income, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.

Empty-Stomach Intelligence (from Digg) – Hunger makes the best sauce, goes the maxim. According to researchers at Yale Medical School, it may make quadratic equations and Kant’s categorical imperative go down easier too. The stimulation of hunger, the researchers announced in the March issue of Nature Neuroscience, causes mice to take in information more quickly, and to retain it better — basically, it makes them smarter. And that’s very likely to be true for humans as well. And I always thought it was just food coma that make me lazy. It’s because hunger makes me smarter.

AppleGeeks Lite 081 – What if babies were like video games?

Dolphins saved by arm wrestling – The world’s tallest man has saved the lives of two dying dolphins in China by reaching deep into their stomachs to pull out pieces of plastic, official Chinese media reported on Thursday. … In an operation shown on local television, a dozen men held the dolphins down while Bao slid his 1.06 metre (42 inch) long arm down their throats to grab the plastic. The dolphins are now recovering well, Xinhua said. His arm is over 3ft long! Interestingly enough, I would’ve thought one of those mechanical arms with clampers would have worked, but they had to request this guy all the way from Mongolia to come. Do check out the gallery of photos.

THREAD (from Digg) – an interesting short animation using just thread to create images and movement. You can see more on his homepage: ARNO SALTERS.

Pray for Coal – The 10 most dangerous play things of all time (from Digg) – In the last year alone, some eight million units of toys were recalled in the U.S., according to W.A.T.C.H., a toy-safety advocacy group. But Kool Toys and Polly Pockets are kids’ stuff compared to the hazardous baubles of yesteryear. In the spirit of the holidays, Radar presents the 10 most dangerous toys of all time, those treasured playthings that drew blood, chewed digits, took out eyes, and, in one case, actually irradiated. To keep things interesting, we excluded BB guns, slingshots, throwing stars, and anything else actually intended to inflict harm. Below, our toy box from hell. These toys are awesome!

Kid Gets Burned By Fire (from Digg) – This dude is insane. I am not sure what he thought would happen by soaking his jeans in gasoline and then running through a fire. I bet this kid has some serious burns after this. Didn’t someone teach him about STOP! DROP! AND ROLL!?

I was reading one of the strips from The Joy of Tech and found this question: Imagine a plane is sitting on a massive conveyor belt, as wide and as long as a runway. The conveyor belt is designed to exactly match the speed of the wheels, moving in the opposite direction. Can the plane take off? My initial instinct was yes, but after I thought more about it, I decided it was no and RayAlome confirms that answer. The thing that is missing is the air flow. Even when your engine is in full power, there’s no air pushing your wings up, which is a natural process when the plane is moving forward. RayAlome suggested putting a giant hair blower in front of it.

December 17, 2006December 17, 2006

Power is BACK!

I think I jinxed myself during the previous entry when I said I was “lucky”. My power went out exactly at 1:41am Thursday night due to the high winds probably knocking over some electric poles or damaging a transformer. I sat around waiting for the power to come back up, assuming it was an intermitten thing. I didn’t for 15 minutes, and my machine was about to hibernate when the UPS said there was 5 minutes left. I did find out that a 24″ LCD uses A LOT of power. Without my Dell 24″ FPW2405 LCD, I have about 25-30 minutes of backup time on the machine. With the LCD plugged in, it drops to 10-12 minutes.

Anyway, I went to bed early that night (before 2am) and set my cell phone to wake me up at 9:30, because I had a one on one at 10:30. Anyway, I woke up around 9 and the power was still out. The reason I woke up was probably a little of the chill + the fact I went to bed early. My car was in the garage so I thought I’d sleep a bit more and hope the power would come back on in those few hours.

I woke up at 2:30pm and the power was still out. I looked around my house. There wasn’t anything to do. I did have my laptop with 2 hours of battery life, but without the internet, there wasn’t much to do. I decided to go to work and see what’s up, hoping they at least have power. So I unlatched my garage. The unlatching was easy, just pull and tug. Lifting the garage didn’t require much strength either. It was trying to figure out how to relatch the garage doors that took a very long time. In the end, I just left it unlatched and locked the door between my garage and my house (this will come back later to haunt me).

The trip to work actually didn’t take that long. Despite all the traffic lights not working, I took 156th up and got to the office building in 25 minutes. I did see horrendous traffic going the other way. The freeways were calm, but the entrances were packed.

It was surreal. It was like dooms day or Armageddon where cities of people are without electricity. I don’t think Seattle was affected, though I haven’t confirmed yet, but many of the east side cities’ (Bellevue, Redmond, Bothell, Kirkland, etc) power grid were all affected. I believe even the airport had to be closed down for awhile (not sure for how long). The funny thing is with all these cars, all the gasoline stations were not running. If you wanted gas, you had to literally drive up to 40 miles away. Thank god my little Civic has good mileage.

Anyway, back to my story. I ended up at my office building and it was totally empty. I didn’t even bother stopping and drove away. Apparently as it turns out, there was an e-mail at 5 or 6am telling all Puget Sound area employees that there won’t be work, but unfortunately for me, I didn’t have email access. At this point I could go home and be bored to death, or I can drop by someone’s place. Derek became the lucky guy I dropped by, plus the fact I had a present for him. Took me about an hour to get from building 40 to 90 freeway. All the main roads were backed up (due to no traffic lights), so I tried some back road, but both Northrup (20th ave) and W Lake Sammamish were closed due to tree fallings. These were trees that were at least 2-3ft in diameter. So I ended up taking 148th ave all the way down and 3 blocks before the freeway entrance literally took 30 minutes (10 minutes / block; maybe more).

Once I got on the freeway, it was nice. Actually about halfway getting onto the freeway, the traffic lights turned on, but it didn’t really help much. I thought, maybe I’d have power back at my place, but decided I’d give it some more time. The remainder of the drive wasn’t bad at all. Traffic lights were not working, but traffic still moved at a fairly good pace. I got to Derek’s place and I think they got home not too long ago. They invited me in and they had many many candles lit. They also had a gas powered stove so that meant they could actually cook. I was actually planning to have cereal and milk since all my cooking equipment required electricity. We made hot cocoa with marshmallows and just sat around chatting next to the fireplace.

I had called Xyon earlier that day and apparently he got electricity back at 6am. Tekman apparently got his electricity back sometime in the afternoon too. Derek gave Tekman a call and he invited us over for pasta and games and to check out his new Sony 1080p projector. We also brought our cell phones and laptops to be charged. Wrexen had his Xbox 360 set up and playing Gears of Wars when we got there and it’s so pretty! We also got to see some other HD content and it’s really nice *drools*… Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting my TV this Christmas as the prices are still somewhat too high. Actually, if Costco had delivery or if the selections on Costco.com was more abundant, I would’ve dropped my 2k awhile back. We played some poker, some board games, and had this awesome Baked Ziti with Italian sausage that Angel made and these yummy garlic bread. Afterwards, Derek and I played a few rounds of Mario Kart – Double Dash.

On our way back, the Microsoft campus seems to be powered. Even that stretch of freeway had the lamps on. I was hoping we’d have power, but neither Derek nor I got power when we got home.

I got home a little after 1am and sat around playing with my fireplace. My fireplace turns out to have fake wood which I thought was real when I moved in. I’ve been following a particular pattern where I only screw up one room: my computer room. I guess I screw up the kitchen too, but I clean that up daily. The living room and the dining room are usually never touched. The fireplace is in the living room. The upstairs are only used for sleeping and showering, but having the temperature drop to 50°F made me decide to try out my fireplace. At first I thought I had to buy new wood every time it gets used up, but it appears that these wood don’t actually catch on fire. It also doesn’t really warm up the room either, guess it’s all going out the chimney. The glass pane in front of the fireplace does get hot, but I only get warm standing right next too it. Oh yah, it turns out I had hot water too. My heat furnace didn’t turn on, though Derek explained to me that was because the fan that pushes the hot air is probably electric. Interestingly enough, even though my thermostat said “Heat On” because it fell below my set temperature of 55°F, the furnace was smart enough to not turn on because there’s no electricity. I was worry when I opened my door into my garage, it would smell of natural gas (or whatever the substance they use to give it that smell).

I went to bed and woke up this morning and found out it was 45°F and I was freezing. Took a nice hot shower and gave Derek a call. I was heading into work to use the internet there, since I assumed the power was back. I took the long way (520 freeway) to get to work to avoid the unpowered traffic lights, however it took me just as long to exit the freeway than the entire freeway trip itself. When I got to building 40, I was once again disappointed. The power hadn’t been restored for that building, so I met up with Derek and we went around searching for a gasoline station that didn’t have a 45min wait. We drove around Bellevue for half an hour or so, trying to find gas stations, and to be honest, I saw more of Bellevue today then I have ever with my whole year here combined. We actually found Bellevue H.S. which was on the top of this hill! We actually ended up all the way in Bothell and still couldn’t find a gas station that had gas. We ended up picking up Tekman in his PJs and he took us to an Arco which was also packed with cars, but at least it didn’t wrap around the entire block (which the Chevron in Bellevue did). That totally reminded me of the comics and pictures of when the middle east stopped shipping oil to us and people waited for hours in line to get gasoline.

Afterwards, Derek, Shanna and I had dinner at ~~Boneyard~~ ~~Fishbone~~ Bonefish Grill and it was yummy. They had a ballet to catch. Apparently when they told me they were going into the city for the ballet, and had to dress nice, and Derek needed to shower and shave, I thought Ballet was either a club or a restaurant. Turns out ballet referred to the Nutcracker ballet. We parted our ways and I drove home to test my luck.

As I was driving home, the street lamps were all on. I was crossing my finger the whole way. About 5 minutes to my house, a street lamp was off and I was like ‘boo’. Then the following street lamp was on and I was like ‘yay’. The street lamps continued to be on until 2 BLOCKS FROM MY HOUSE!?!?! And then it was total darkness. I felt like kicking something. On the other hand, I was hoping they’d be close to fixing my place.

I got home, turned on the heater, pushed my couch close to the fireplace, started paying music from my iPod Nano through my Shure E4C-n, and began writing this blog entry. 2 paragraphs in, I get bored and started playing Free Cell.

After a couple games, that’s when I looked out the window and saw the mail kiosk and was like, did I pick up mail today? Then it hits me, I WAS ABLE TO SEE THE KIOSK!!! The light was on. I turn around and look towards my computer room, the lamp was on and so was my computer!!! Yippee!!! The power came back on at 7:04pm exactly (looked at my alarm clock and saw how much time has passed since it was powered). 12 minutes had actually passed before I noticed it. First thing I do? I log into my computer, sign on AIM, and announce it to the world. Well, really just 2 people, but yay!

So this is me being stupid. Since the power was back on, the first thing… well, the second thing that came into my head was to fix the garage. I had told Derek about my garage door situation, and he tells me that the garage will latch back onto the “traveler” (as the manual calls it) when you open the garage door your next time. Of course that required power, so I wasn’t able to fix it till now. The garage doors snapped back in just like Derek said they would. I was like awesome, turned around and tried to open the door. MY JAW DROPS.

As I mentioned how locking the door into the garage would haunt me later, the door was locked! I felt my pockets, NOTHING. At least I was dressed warmly with a sweater. I tried the door again. No luck. I wondered if I was smart enough to hide a spare key somewhere. No go. I even checked my car’s glove box and underneath all the paint cans. I went around to the front door and was hoping I’d been stupid enough to leave that unlock (which sometimes I do), but nope, I was smart this time. I jumped onto my back balcony and tried the sliding door. Nope, also looked. I walked around my house several times and thought really hardly. Looks like I need a locksmith. Derek mentioned he knew how to pick locks, but he’s probably still in the middle of Nutcrackers and a door was between me and my computer.

At this time, my neighbor (one of the two that helped me with my car in the snow situation and one that I also baked cookies for) was working on fixing his garage door. I walked over to say hi and I helped him with his garage door. Then I told him my story. Unfortunately he was not a locksmith, nor knew any. I asked if I could borrow his phone to call, and he was kind enough to let me into his house and and we Googled for locksmiths in Bellevue, WA. Pretty much picked the first one and called and he said he could be here in 20-30 minutes. I was like sweet. I was actually contemplating on calling multiple locksmiths to quote their prices, but given that this was an emergency plus the fact that I’m borrowing my neighbors phone and house, I decided to not bother. If I had my cell phone and a phone book, I would’ve definitely done some shopping. Do remember, this was a Saturday night. I met his wife and mother-in-law earlier (gave cookies to the mom and bumped into the wife when I was confirming the blackout), but I met their cute little daughter for the first time. They let me stay in their house while we waited for the locksmith, watched some Finding Nemo and even gave me a cookie (dunkers).

The locksmith showed up and apparently, and I thanked my kind neighbors and went out to meet him. He asked if I had any ID, but I told him it was in the house. He asked if anyone could confirm that I lived here and I said my neighbors could. I asked if he wanted me to ask them to come out, and he goes well, I did see you walk out of there, so that’s fine. He said deadbolts are practically impossible to unlock, so he tried the door in my garage. He said these types of locks usually takes 15 seconds (or was it 3 seconds?) for him to unlock, but there’s a pin that he couldn’t pick. He then tried some other tools which include a flat sheet of metal and a bent screw driver and he wiggled it for a good 5 minutes and then asked me if I was sure there wasn’t any other lock on this door. I confirmed and he said, “Don’t worry, there hasn’t been a door I have been unable to unlock. Worse case scenario, I bring out the drill.” I was like okay… I can always break a window and get back into my house too… Of course I thought that in my head. He then busted out with these air pouches and used the flat metal and wiggled it some more and the door finally busted open. I had to bring down my driver’s license and a credit card statement (since my driver’s license doesn’t reflect this address) and to confirm I do live here. He was actually quite thorough. Initially, I just brought down and packing slip from one of my internet orders, but he said he needed to see a credit card statement or a utility bill so I went back up to search for one. Since most of my statements were online only, it took a few minutes for me to actually one one.

I went back down with my Capital One statement (apparently they don’t think my email address exists and keeps sending me statements with a note that tells me emails they’re sending are being rejected). But that’s another story for anther day. I go back down, he confirms I live here and tells me he’ll give me a discount since I’m paying in cash. $120 for the work and $55 for the service call. I knew I was going to pay and $175 was actually near the higher end of my estimate, but oh well, emergency is emergency. Thank god I had gone to the ATM before coming home. I was down to $1 and all my banks around here were closed (no electricity). After dinner at Bonefish Grill, there was actually a Bank of America in that same mall and I withdrew $300 and I was even thinking, how long $300 was going to last me. Welp, over half is gone now. Haha. $175 for a lesson. I need to figure out where to hide a spare key now. I’m actually thinking of dropping it off at my neighbors, but I’m not sure if they’ll feel comfortable with it.

I’m finally back in my house and then I remember… THE FRIDGE! I opened the fridge for the 1st time since the blackout and was surprised there wasn’t any smell. As a warning for those with ice cube makers, apparently there are holes and water was starting to freeze everywhere. There was even a puddle at the bottom. I thought the ice was going to keep the freezer cold, but it made a bigger mess than I had anticipated. And being trapped outside for 45 mins meant it had 45 mins of trying to get frozen. I threw away pot-stickers which were gooey and my frozen bbq wings, which I think was okay, but I didn’t want to deal with it. I kept the mushroom risotto and the asparagus risotto. I actually had to get up and walk over to the fridge to figure out what the name of that green veggie that Ryan likes was. I knew it began with an ‘a’ and it was on the tip of my tongue, but I finally gave up and walked over. The vanilla ice cream was also all gooey. I also threw away my eggs (I think they actually started to change in color) and my pumpkin pie which looked funky and some veggies that have been there for weeks. I’m actually keeping the milk as it tastes fine and smells fine.

I did bake my last 3 cookies and made one jumble cookie:

And that’s been the chaos for the past 2 days.

December 9, 2006December 9, 2006

The Hunt For A Killer Begins

I was watching the trailer for Primeval (movie actually looks quite horrible), and it had these 3 screens near the end:

For some reason I thought the there was going to be more to that sentence and came up with this quote:
The hunt for a killer begins by being hunted.

I thought the quote was rather clever and Google had no results for that query. Even if I broke it down into “the hunt for” “by being hunted”, it found one result that didn’t match up the quotes.

So this is a Krunk-Original 🙂

Oh yah, I didn’t know what primeval meant either. According to Dictionary.com:

primeval: of or pertaining to the first age or ages, esp. of the world: primeval forms of life.

Sounds like primitive, but even more ancient.

Random Crap:

VerizonMath (from /.) – I can’t believe how illogical Verizon customer service representatives can be. Maybe illogical isn’t the correct word. Other words that were floating in my head include irrational, unreasonable, and stupid. While you read this, you should start listening to his conversation with 2 Verizon reps (a supervisor and the supervisor’s boss). So how hard is it to understand that “.002 cents” does not equal “.002 dollars”. I mean he even went from something like 2 dollars does not equal 2 cent (rep agrees); .2 dollars doesn’t equal .2 cents (rep agrees); .02 dollars doesn’t equal .02 cents (rep agrees). .002 dollars doesn’t equal .002 cents (rep argues they’re the same). Haha. The Consumerist.com has labeled it as the “vcent“. DO note the audio recording isn’t really almost 2 hours long. They must’ve had a problem creating the mp3. It’s really only a little short of 27 minutes. His problem is still unresolved as even corporate can’t seem to see the difference. He now begs Verizon reps to at least go to their accountants for help with “math”, but I wouldn’t find it shocking that even the Verizon accountants would screw this math up.

Winterbells (from Digg) – a new game from Orisinal.com. The little critters are still as cute as ever. My high score was 16550, but I didn’t really play that long. Those birdies give a lot of bonus points.

Horny Manatee.com (from Digg) – You can watch the video here and see how this website came about. Here’s what Conan O’Brien says:

After the show, I get a call from NBC Standards. It happens from time to time, usually when I just go off on a foul mouth tirade on the program. This time, I got a call from Standards, true story, they told me if I mention a web address that does not exist, even if I’m kidding around, if I mention a web address that does not exist, we legally have to buy the rights to that website. I had no idea! Sounds crazy, but that is 100% true. If you’re on television, I didn’t know this, if you’re on television, and you’re in a position of authority, which I didn’t know I was, and you mention a website, it has to exist, or you’re in a lot of trouble. So last night after the show, for $159, NBC became the proud owner for 10 years of www.HornyManatee.com

He’s the Computer Man (from Digg) – Hilarious music video. What song is this based from. The “bip bip bip bip bip bop” chorus sounds really familiar.

This Is Why We Dive (from Digg) – really cool pictures from under the sea!

Meet Thumbelina, the world’s smallest horse (from Digg) – Standing just 17 inches tall, she is never going to be a champion show-jumper. Wow! A horse mid*cough*, I mean a little horsie.

Super Mario Bros. 3 LEGO (from Digg) – Stop Motion Animation recreating a scene from Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES using Lego Blocks. See more at www.bitflicks.com This is so awesome! At first I was wondering when the LEGOs would show up, but apparently what I thought was a TV screen WAS the LEGOs!!! They have more at the website: www.bitflicks.com. They have one on Metroid, Donkey Kong, a couple more. Now that I actually some of its entries, this is actually CGI. Guess I’m somewhat disappointed now. Still neat, just not as neat as I originally thought.

CGSphere The Gallery (from Digg) – Interesting renderings of based on a original image of a sphere.

You can say that again…and again…and again.. – The Top 10 greatest TV quotes and catchphrases chosen by TV Land are：

Heeere’s Johnny! (Ed McMahon, The Tonight Show)
One small step for man … (Neil Armstrong)
You’re fired! (Donald Trump, The Apprentice)
Baby, you’re the greatest. (Ralph Kramden, The Honeymooners)
Ask not what your country can do for you … (John F. Kennedy)
D’oh! (Homer Simpson, The Simpsons)
Where’s the beef? (Wendy’s)
Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis? (Arnold Drummond, Diff’rent Strokes)
Yabba dabba do! (Fred Flintstone, The Flintstones)
I’m not a crook (Richard Nixon)

Sex worker stabs client in condom fight – A Cambodian man has been stabbed by a sex worker in a brawl, after he refused her request to wear a condom, police said Friday. Suon Da, 25, was knifed twice in the abdominal area by Sa Rida, a 24-year-old sex worker, during the fight at a brothel in Battambang province Wednesday, said Koam Roeuy, a deputy police chief from the area. What idiot doesn’t wear a condom with a prostitute?

Overloaded pants end shoplifter’s escape – Cheyanne E. Dwiggins, 18, is accused of trying to steal several pieces of candy, kitchen utensils and a 15-ounce box of strawberry Nestle’s Nesquik from Bauer’s Market in Lapel, about 25 miles northeast of Indianapolis. I find his selection of stolen goods amusing.

Bush’s dog Barney is back with new video – Just in time for the holidays, America’s best-known Scottish terrier is back with a new video on the White House Web site. View the cute puppies at: Barney Cam V: “Barney’s Holiday Extravaganza” The puppies are so cute!!!

“The Last Photo I Ever Took” Contest (from Digg) – People’s last moment captured on camera.

PuzzleLand (from Digg) – A fun flash game where you try to figure the correct order of things to do. Even the Tab that highlights all the clickable items isn’t much use. I finally got stuck on level 4 and called in and used the walkthrough.

Brazil plans to sell 30-year-old coffee beans – A cup of coffee can turn too bitter to drink in hours, but unroasted, well stored coffee beans can last up to 30 years, and Brazil’s government is capitalizing on this fact. Are coffee beans suppose to taste better, the longer they’re kept, like wine?

Woman gives birth mid-flight – This was one baby who couldn’t wait to land. A 42-year-old woman gave birth to a healthy girl late Wednesday aboard a plane destined for O’Hare International Airport from Mexico, officials said Thursday. Story wasn’t too interesting, but I thought there was a rule where a woman who’s within a month of her due date is not allowed to board a plane…

Holiday shoppers keep buying during fire – An electrical fire that filled a department store with thick smoke didn’t deter holiday shoppers, and firefighters had to block the doors to keep customers from coming in, authorities said. … “It was amazing,” said Mentor fire Battalion Chief Joe Busher. “Even though there was heavy smoke in there, they all wanted to stay and shop. We even had to put people at the door to keep people from coming in.” Haha! Maybe a PS3 or Wii was involved.

Blue Dragon for the Xbox 360 looks like it’s going to be an awesome game. Unfortunately, it’s only out in Japan at the moment. They even got a special deal. From Blue Dragon Descends Upon Japan:

Blue Dragon, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s first major work in over five years, is finally out in Japan. To commemorate the release (and uh, to try and sell some Xbox 360s), Microsoft put together a special limited edition “Blue Dragon Core System Premium Pack,” which consists of an Xbox 360 Core System, a Blue Dragon faceplate, a set of five miniature figures and a mini-calendar. Oh, and a copy of Blue Dragon, of course. The amazing thing is that all of this only costs 29,800 yen–roughly $259 US dollars. Incredibly cheap, yes, but considering most Japanese gamers wouldn’t go within 50 feet of an Xbox 360 if you paid them, this kind of drastic pricing seems necessary.

Drools… Interestingly enough, demand for the Xbox 360 has actually increased quite a bit in Japan due to the release of this game. You can check out the lines for the release of this package: 『ブルードラゴン』本日発売！「ヨドバシカメラ Akiba」でカウントダウンイベント (Opening day sale of Blue Dragon! With “Yodoshi Camera Akiba” countdown event).

Speaking of which, the Xbox 360 can be picked up at Overstock.com for $325 shipped with the new 20% off coupon the just released. More details at BargainShare.com. It appears the Xbox 360 is now out of stock. The coupon says it expires 1/1/2007, so you might be able to try again.

December 6, 2006

Glow-in-the-Dark Mushrooms

I just got my glow-in-the-dark mushrooms today from Dirty Microbe. They call it “Tokyo luminous mushrooms” as the mushrooms themselves don’t really glow, but the other sand-line pebbles around it do. However, it’s still so awesome!!!

Here’s an image from their website:
tokyo luminous mushrooms

Both mushrooms I got had green bumps on them. Would’ve been nice if they gave me a red one too, but seeing how these were out of stock for quite some time, I’m not complaining.

For those interested in purchasing from their site, they sent me a card:

saving money is good.
use this code on your next order!

FREE SHIPPING!
DISCOUNT_B7

Shipping without the code is still just $1.99, but a $2 savings is $2 I can buy more toys like these glow-in-the-dark mushrooms.

They’re also have a t-shirt sale where any t-shirt is $12. They has some funny and some cute designs.

Random Crap:

Malaysian state to hold lullaby contest – The government of Kelantan, the only Malaysian state to be ruled by an Islamic fundamentalist party, will organize this month a lullaby contest to find the mother who can best induce sleep in her children and husband with songs, The Star newspaper said Thursday. Mom: “Listen guys. I need to win this contest. Here’s 10 sleeping pills you’re going to take 5 minutes before I start singing.”

Fake Luigi invades Japanese Wii launch (from Deadlock) – this blog entry wasn’t that interesting, but while watching the video, I saw the girl in the picture below:

(from Tera – taken from 4chan)

Though it’s not definitive, but you get an idea of who plays the PS3 and who plays the Wii. If you want a cute attractive girl to come to your place, you get the Wii. If you want… well… you get the story.

City dunks cookie-scented ad campaign – City officials ordered CBS Outdoor, the company that holds the advertising contract for its bus shelters, to remove the adhesive strips Tuesday, just one day after they were put up as part of a “Got Milk?” campaign. … Some critics expressed concern over potential allergic reactions. Others complained the ads could be offensive to the poor and homeless who can’t afford to buy sweet treats. Interesting why no one bothered to ask if the poor and homeless were offended by it. Don’t you love it how people just love making decisions for those that are not as well off as they are?

Scary ‘Mary Poppins’ Trailer (from Digg) – I recut the Disney classic to make it seem like a horror movie, entitled SCARY MARY. Haha! Another awesome parody trailer. Reminds me of the parody Shining trailer. Then again, I’ve never watched Mary Poppins.

War on Drugs Expands to Catnip (from MS newsgroup) –

While catnip does not have the same effect on human beings, the advocates of banning catnip have pointed out that children who give their cats catnip and then see the cat being “happy” might get dangerous ideas about getting high. They think, if the cat can feel good, why not them too? Indeed, the first step to marijuana addiction may well be catnip! According to the drug warriors, catnip has been a major gateway to the human abuse of drugs, and yet there has been no prohibition.

…

“Catnip is a much greater drug problem than most people realize,” said Ima Tyrant in a recently televised interview. “Some teenagers have experimented with smoking catnip. People also make tea from catnip, and have used it in folk medicines. We can no longer tolerate this big loophole in drug abuse. The prohibition of catnip will the “cat-stone” to America’s War on Drugs.

Haha! A hilarious article and has the same funny taste as The Onion.

Penn and Teller: Bullshit! Environmental Hysteria (from Digg) – Penn and Teller show us that we are not ruining the planet

America Gets Screwed in New Porn Parody (from FuzzyWuzzy) – (NOT WORK SAFE!) This couple mixes politics and sex with a kinky roleplaying game. With no exit strategy in sight and screams to pull out, the country gets screwed nasty.

Leeroy Live – Elevator Camera (from Digg) – Security camera from a Bailey & Croft elevator. What if Leeroy Jenkins from WoW (World of Warcraft) behaves like this in real life.

What code DOESN’T do in real life (that it does in the movies) (from Digg) – Following up our article: Top 20 Hackers in Film History and Vibrant’s Top 10 Servers in the movies, I felt obligated to dispel some of the notions about programming that these movies endorse. I understand that Hollywood needs to dress things up to make them more entertaining, but in the case of programmers, code, and hackers they’ve done more than dress things up – they’ve morphed a little stuffed teddy bear into a cybernetic polar bear covered in christmas lights and phosphorescent hieroglyphics with a fog machine pumping rainbow smoke out of his ass. In other words, they’ve layered a ridiculous amount of extravagance on top of something that in reality is very grounded. Haha! Reminds me that the same rules applies to anime, where physics are re-defined. Though I think Xyon would disagree completely on this: People who write code use mice

Xbox 360 Versus PlayStation 3 Graphics Comparison (from Digg) – We expected the PlayStation 3 to ship with several games that first appeared on the Xbox 360, similar to how the Xbox 360 had a lot of Xbox ports at launch. And the PS3 did indeed arrive with a good number of games that originally shipped for the Xbox 360. This gave us the perfect opportunity to compare the graphics on both systems with several cross-platform games. You’d think that the PS3 versions would be exactly the same or slightly superior to the Xbox 360 versions, since many of these games appeared on the 360 months ago, but it seems like developers didn’t use the extra time to polish up the graphics for the PS3. We found that the Xbox 360 actually had better graphics in the majority of the games we compared. The games compared are: NFS Carbon, COD3, Madden, Marvel, NBA 2K7, Fight Night, Tony Hawk, Tiger Woods.

How To Make A Card Vanish – Learn how to make a card disappear into thin air. It is a very convincing illusion. No trick deck nor preparation is needed.

December 6, 2006

Card Trick

I posted this card trick video a few days ago and well, a few days ago, ElBandMonkey came and asked for hints on how the tricked worked. It’s rather simple to get once you see the pattern. In fact, this trick can be done with any odd number of rows and any odd number columns greater than 1. However, the number of questionings may differ depending on the number of rows and columns. Since you ask the person to tell you where the card is 3 times, he/she basically gave you enough information to figure out where the card is. It just so happens with the steps that you follow, it allows lands the card in #11 spot.

Here’s how it begins, with 21 cards:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C F D E G H I J K

Ask the person to select the column their card is in. Let’s say they chose column 3:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F G H I J K

Redeal the cards with the selected column in the middle. Note where the cards land.
0 3 6 9 C F I 2 5 8 B E H K 1 4 7 A D G J

Notice that there’s only 3 cards max in each column that can be the correct card.

Ask the person to choose again and for this trial, lets take the worst case scenario: column 2.

0 3 6 9 C F I 2 5 8 B E H K 1 4 7 A D G J

Redeal the cards with the selected column in the middle.
0 9 I 8 H 4 D 3 C 2 B K 7 G 6 F 5 E 1 A J

So no matter which column the person chooses now, you can guarantee it’d be the card smack in the middle of the column. And when you stick that column in the middle, you can guarantee the spot of their card to be #11 (right in the middle of 21 cards).

December 6, 2006December 6, 2006

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 Music – A 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.

December 6, 2006December 6, 2006

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:

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 scent – Hoping 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.

December 2, 2006December 2, 2006

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!

December 2, 2006December 2, 2006

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.