Games – Page 8 – Krunk4Ever!

February 26, 2007February 25, 2007

Random Crap

Pictures From the Sky (from Digg) – Very pretty pictures. They appear to have been taken from YANN ARTHUS-BERTRAND.ORG.

Massive Pound-And-A-Half Rats Infest KFC/Taco Bell In The West Village – They are big. A pound or a pound and a half. Rats! Plump, healthy-looking and oh-so-agile. CBS 2 cameras caught dozens of them early Friday morning through the window of this closed KFC-Taco Bell in the West Village. And now CBS 2 has learned that the Department of Health will keep the restaurant closed until it can reinspect it. The video shows these big rants running around KFC. This KFC was in fact operational, and was opened even last night. Yahoo! News has more information about it.

No need to diet AND exercise to lose weight? – – A new study debunks the widely held belief that diet plus exercise is the most effective way to lose weight. Researchers report that dieting alone is just as effective as dieting plus exercise. … Thirty-five overweight but otherwise healthy adults — 16 men and 19 women — completed the 6-month study. Twelve were assigned to a diet-only group; they reduced their calorie intake by 25 percent. Twelve were assigned to diet plus exercise; they reduced their calorie intake by 12.5 percent and increased their exercise by 12.5 percent. The remaining 11 subjects made no significant diet or exercise changes. Redman and colleagues found that the diet-only group and the diet plus exercise group lost roughly the same amount of weight, albeit by different means. They lost about 10 percent of their body weight, 24 percent of their fat mass and 27 percent of their abdominal “visceral” fat — the deep internal fat linked to heart disease risk.

Meetings make us dumber, study shows (from Digg) – People have a harder time coming up with alternative solutions to a problem when they are part of a group, new research suggests. Scientists exposed study participants to one brand of soft drink then asked them to think of alternative brands. Alone, they came up with significantly more products than when they were grouped with two others. It’s not just “two heads aren’t better than one”, it’s “two heads are worse than one”.

Technical Support in Medieval Times (from MS newsgroup) – Shows what happened to scholars when scrolls were upgraded to books and the support they needed to use the new system. Hilarious skit.

PS3 Song (from MS newsgroup) – A rather funny parody song making fun of Sony and the PS3. The song is called “How To Kill A Brand” and this person just took the song and added a slideshow behind it. The song it’s parodying is The Fray – How To Save A Life.

**********GAMER CAST NETWORK**********

“How to Kill a Brand” by Doc Adams.

****I DID NOT MAKE THIS SONG****

I added the photos and made it into this video but the song is all Doc Adams.

*Puts on Flame Suit*

I found the song at GamerCast Network: How To Kill A Brand
(to save as mp3 right click and save as)

I want to offer a thanks to Doc Adams for endorsing this video. He did a great job I only put it here for all you to see. enjoy 🙂

******UPDATES********
Official name of the song is “How to Kill a Brand” -By Doc Adams and he has graciously given me the green light to keep this on here.

-Thanks to everyone for the feedback. If I would have know it was going to get this much attention I would have spent more time on the editing. Hopefully next time the video will be as good as the song. Thanks again.

***I DID NOT MAKE THIS SONG***

LYRICS

Step 1, You make your console cost the most,
You Beat your chest and proudly Boast,
Despite no good exclusive games
You make a bunch of ridiculous claims,

Then ignore our need to play online
Don’t make it fun like Xbox Live
Use Blue Ray, Which I don’t need
Now you’re getting your ass kicked by the Wii

Sony, you went wrong, with your PS3
I’ll just keep playing my 360
Hope this song has helped, you understand
Now you know, How You Killed Your Brand.

Phil Harrison yeah you know best
Except you didn’t Beta Test
Sure I can surf the net
But I can’t find my Gaming Friends

You Say Halo 3 Don’t worry you
Instead you offer Killzone 2
But Killzone 1 sucked before
So what made you think we wanted more?

Repeat Chorus..

Phil Quotes

Repeat Chorus

Phil Quote.

Photo Illusions (from Digg) – A photographer went around the world with objects and photos and realigned them to take the picture, showing you the original merging into the scenery of the current.

Smart Guys Date in Parallel (from Digg) – So a few days ago, I was on the phone, whining to my dad about throwing a Fifth Annual F—— Valentine’s Day party and trying to figure out my personal life. My dad listened thoughtfully, and then began explaining to me what I was doing wrong. The problem, he said, is that I date girls serially. His diagrams are hilarious! Tera then asks, “so… women are appliances?” I replied, “They’re resistors. Guys are batteries and we send the love current through them.”

Windows Vista (from Digg) – This set contains my work from the Microsoft Photoshoot I did late 2005 – early 2006. My mission was to create genuine images to be a part of the Windows Vista Wallpaper collection. Two shots from the Photoshoot (first two in the set) made it to Vista’s Wallpaper Collection, while many others remain here, and waiting to be uncovered. I couldn’t be honored enough for the privilege to work with Microsoft on this fantastic project. Special thanks go to Jenny Lam, and Luciana Misura from the MSX Design Team for this wonderful opportunity. Interview with me by Long Zheng about The Vista Photoshoot. You can download High Resolution (1920×1200) versions of most of these images on my website (www.hamaddarwish.com)

Aerial Photographs of Mexico City (from Awesome Pics of Mexico City) – This are a few of the pictures that I have taken while working as a Helicopter Pilot over Mexico City. The best and most recent Mexico City Stock Aerial Photography, I hope you find them interesting.

A few interesting test answers provided by kids today: (from Digg)

New Zealand fishermen land massive squid – New Zealand fishermen may have caught the largest Colossal squid ever found — weighing around 450kg (992 pounds) and with rings the size of tyres.

February 25, 2007

Random Crap

It’s been awhile since my last post. You can blame the TV. Been playing with it too much. It’s so sexy!

This past week was somewhat weird. I’ve had training for a course in Advanced Windows Communication Foundation (Indigo), which was quite informative. Unfortunately this 2-day class began at 9am, and for as long as I remembered, I don’t recall getting up at 8am for work. I also ended up going to sleep around 12am (ahhh! so early!) for those few days.

This past weekend, Stanman and his gang came over to my placed and we played the Wii, Guitar Hero, Xbox 360, and some other stuff on my new TV.

I’ve been meaning to post my new HTPC experience for awhile, but I’m still waiting to get my hard drive. I currently have the Seagate 250GB + 500GB 7200.10 SATA hard drives in my HTPC. They’re a bit noisy. I’ve already purchased the Western Digital 500GB SATA hard drive (which everyones seems to say is very quiet) and should be arriving this week, at which point, I’ll be swapping out the Seagates and putting in this Western Digital. Then my HTPC will be complete (minus the TV tuners, which is a later project) and I’ll blog about it.

When watching TV or movies on my new TV, I feel a bit odd, somewhat out of place. Before, I would always be multi-tasking. Watching a movie, surfing the net, and chatting with friends all at the same time. Now putting me on the couch and just watching TV feels a bit odd. I’m thinking I might just start using my laptop while I watch TV so I don’t feel so weird. That or I can purchase an exercise bike and force myself to exercise when I’m watching TV. Derek suggests that I make the bike be the power source of the TV so if I stop, the TV turns off.

More Creative and Beautiful Wallpapers (from Digg) – Wallpapers can be creative, inspiring, gorgeous and hilarious. Recently we’ve posted an overview of Selected Wallpapers for Desktop and Web Design and Christmas Wallpapers. Now it’s time for something fresh, original and creativie. Let’s take a look at some more creative and beautiful wallpapers for your personal desktop. A nice collection of sites with some pretty wallpapers.

$1500 electric guitar made from 1/3 of a $15 Ikea table (from Digg) – Zachary built a very nice looking electric guitar top from a $15 Ikea end table. He says he can build three tops from one end table.

Construction of the World’s Highest Bridge (from Digg) – Construction of the Millau Bridge in France – The Millau bridge over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains is more than 300m (984ft) high – taller even than the Eiffel Tower. With its concrete and steel pillars soaring high above the morning fog in the Tarn Valley, the construction makes a spectacular sight.

Speedtest.net (from Digg) – Another pretty neat speed testing site. A lot more fancier than Broadband Reports’ Speed Test.

Empty boxes and politeness dent generosity – The research by Victoria University of Wellington’s economics department showed that how much is already in a donation box, the mix of coins and notes, and what sorts of signs are present will influence how generous the public will be. … “The most important thing is to never leave the box empty,” said senior lecturer John Randal. … More banknotes than coins led to larger individual donations, but a fall in the number of donations, while more coins saw more donations but of a lower value. Interesting study.

Dog store sign angers Seattle residents – A newly opened store catering to very pampered dogs, especially female dogs, is getting more than questioning looks for its name, High Maintenance Bitch. Haha.

Wii Quarters (from Digg) – A parody Wii game cover for a common college game: Quarters. Hilarious piece of work.

Not just good, but good for you (from Digg) –

Mounting evidence suggests sex helps keep us healthy

Easing depression and stress

Relieving pain

Boosting cardio health

Countering prostate cancer

Healing wounds

Fighting aging

There were some rather funny/interesting quotes:

But wait, there’s more. A recent study of college students at the State University of New York in Albany suggests that semen acts as an antidepressant. Females in the study who were having sex without condoms (see safe sex caution, above) had fewer signs of depression than women who used condoms or abstained from sex.

I can’t resist another plug for semen. It’s possible that male goo can lower blood pressure. Another recent study found that women who gave their men oral sex, and swallowed, had a lower risk of preeclampsia, the dangerously high blood pressure that sometimes accompanies pregnancy.

The Poshest Gas Station in Los Angeles (from Digg) – A very funky modern architectural gas station. I didn’t know what poshest (or posh) meant, but according to dictionary.com, it means smart and fashionable. I would hardly describe this thing as “fashionable”. Also, it shows a clear misunderstanding of what octane is (i.e. 87, 89, 91) by describing them as good, better, and best respectively. I guess that’s what the common people believe to be the case.

Vegetables as we don’t see (from Digg) – An interesting assortment of animal carvings from vegetables and fruits:

February 19, 2007

Dryer

I got my Whirlpool dryer installed a week ago. Haven’t actually gotten to use it yet though. It was pretty big and took more space than my old one, due to a fatter exhaust pipe. However, now my dryer and washing machine are matching. My next laundry is next weekend so I’ll report back to you how long it takes me to dry my clothes.

Random Crap:

Porn movie causes trouble for two men (from Digg) – Police made contact with the neighbor, a 39-year-old man, who told them he heard a woman screaming from upstairs and feared she was being sexually assaulted. The subject said he grabbed the 39-inch sword, went upstairs and kicked in the door to investigate. … The victim told his neighbor, and later showed police the evidence, that the noise came from a pornographic movie he was watching.

OpenCola – Open Source Coca Cola (from Digg) – OpenCola is a brand of cola unique in that the instructions for making it are freely available and modifiable. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe as long as they, too, license their recipe under the GNU General Public License. The original webpage opencola.com is no longer available and has been replaced with a link farm, but you can find all the information you need on the Wikipedia page.

Sex in fast lane halts traffic on Israeli road – Israeli police investigating why a car was blocking traffic in the fast lane of a major highway on Sunday found a couple inside having sex.

Cyanide and Happiness – STD – At first I didn’t get the joke. What the heck is “the bar”? What are they talking about? But after Angelus mentioned it might be the censorship/mosaic rendering, it made much more sense.

Dave Devries The Monster Engine – Art (from Digg) – This guy apparently takes kid drawings and make the “cool” or as I would say coolify it. Pretty neat.

Tersumus eraser (from Digg) – The palm-size Tersumus eraser is shaped like the well-known key on a computer keyboard. Interestingly enough, I’ve never seen such a big “delete” key on any keyboard. Usually, they’re the default size on in the little island where my insert, home, end, page up, and page down keys are. My “backspace” key on the other hand does resemble that size.

How did the whole “Tooth Fairy” thing get started? (from Digg) – The Straight Dope tackled this topic back in 2004. According to their crack staff, “The tooth fairy as we now know her didn’t make an appearance until the early 1900s.” Her popularity may have hit the mainstream in 1949 when a popular children’s story by Lee Rogow was published.

Vista Ice Office (from Digg) – There appears to be a couple more here on this Russian site. From the Digg comments I also found these links: Windows Vista Week One Roundup and The Ice House That Gates Built. According to them:

So, about that giant ice house that Microsoft put up in Dundas Square: apparently 270,000 pounds of ice went into the construction of the 1,800 square foot structure, which includes a fully sculpted kitchen, dining room, study, living room, two bedrooms and bathroom all wired-up with televisions and computers (real, as opposed to of the ice variety) running demos of Vista and Office 2007. It’s lucky that the weather has finally decided to act wintery, because expensive electronics don’t tend to get along with melting slush.

The house is open to the public between 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. today through Saturday. Highlights include the working ice toilet paper holder, ice fire place, ice microwave, and the sweet ice stereo system. Bring mittens.

I remember watching some travel show at Derek’s house and they show this hotel made completely of ice (you even sleep on an ice bed) that is all year round. Crazy! I don’t remember the name of the hotel, but it’s somewhere in Canada.

Teton Fire (from Digg) – Brilliant morning color over the Teton Mountains from the west. 5xp hdr (I put the technique in a note below.) Wow! This is a really pretty photo. Would love it as a my wallpaper, but unfortunately, it’s not 1920×1200.

Table Hockey…On Real Ice (from Digg) – WiseGreek decided to build a mini hockey table using real ice to “see if the basic idea would work on real ice as opposed to using the air bearing principle.” Video after the jump. Pretty neat project.

Zelda Reorchestrated (from Digg) – ZREO stands for Zelda Reorchestrated. It is our goal to transcribe the musical masterpieces that you have heard in the greatest video game series ever created: The Legend of Zelda! Our goal is to give each and every song from The Legend of Zelda series a realistic and atmospheric sound with the quality that you would expect from such film composers as John Williams, Howard Shore, and James Horner. We don’t look to seek profit or fame. This is merely our own form of artistic expression that stems from The Legend of Zelda. If it weren’t for Zelda, ZREO wouldn’t exist. So we are grateful to have such a legendary video game series that can pull so much inspiration out of us. I’ve been listening to some of these Zelda songs on repeat. You can download them too if you want.

Tiny duckling has rare mutation: 4 legs – A rare mutation has left the eight-day-old duckling with two nearly full-sized legs behind the two he runs on. Nicky Janaway, a duck farmer in New Forest, Hampshire, 95 miles southwest of London, showed the duckling to reporters Saturday. Crazy! There’s so much mutations recently. Is it a sign that evolution will take it’s next big jump?

duck mutation with four (4) legs

February 18, 2007February 18, 2007

恭喜發財! My New TV!

恭喜發財! GONG HEY FAT CHOY! Happy Chinese New Year! Today marks the beginning of the new lunar calendar year. This year is the year of the pig.

So I was at Costco today getting some necessities (alright, they were more like goodies), when I decided to ask them about when my Vizio 47″ LCD HDTV would be coming in. After a quick lookup, they said they had already tried to call me, but apparently it was the wrong number. The guy who wrote down my cell number must’ve heard me say 675 instead of 679. I guess 5 and 9 do sound similar. So I could’ve been called a week ago since they’ve had stock for some time and I called in to give them my cell over a week ago. I even called back a few more times asking how much longer before it’s my turn, but each time while waiting for the supervisor (with the list), I get hung up. Anyways, they said it was available for me to purchase today.

At first I was planning to borrow Tekman’s van to carry this, but this was totally unprepared for. I decided, what the heck, Derek was able to fit it into his Civic, I should be able to fit it into mine. Unfortunately I didn’t calculate the fact that Derek also has a wife (or at least someone else who went with him to Silverdale). I pull down all the seats in my car and pack everything into the front, the box just won’t go in as I try to jam it. Guess I miscalculated the size of my trunk. Tekman lived all the way in Bothell and it’d suck to tell him to drive 40mi to Bellevue Costco to help me out.

Derek had to pull his out of the box, so I guess that was my next step. I open the box in the parking lot of Costco and start removing things. The TV was rather heavy and trying to be careful and lifting the damn thing didn’t really work out. I gave Derek a call, since he was only 15mins from this Costco asking for help. Derek comes of course and helps me load the TV into the trunk and then helps me carry it into my place.

I had made plans with CDMCC to watch Breach tonight, so I didn’t get a chance to play with it till I got home and it’s SWEET! My “basic” cable comes with a bunch of HD channels which I’m guessing is part of the “basic” package since they’re required by law (I believe) to include these channels. I then tested it with my Xbox 360 running at 1080p via component cables and tested a few games. Now I just need to get some cables from monoPrice and my HTPC is set to go!

Random Crap:

The cost of leaving your PC on (from Digg) – Between my server and my Windows Media Center home theater PC, I have at least two PCs on all the time at home. Have you ever wondered how much it’s costing you to leave a computer on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? … So leaving my server on is costing me $200 / year, or $16.68 per month. My home theater PC is a bit more frugal at 65 watts. Using the same formulas, that costs me $81 / year or $6.75 per month.

Man wins $25,000 lottery two days in row – An airline pilot from Maplewood won a $25,000 lottery jackpot — two days in a row. Raymond Snouffer Jr. matched the winning numbers 11-14-23-26-31 to win Saturday’s Northstar Cash drawing with odds of about 170,000 to 1, Minnesota Lottery officials said.

Why it’s gross to kiss your sister – Researchers who wanted to find out why it is not only taboo to kiss your sister, but also disgusting, said on Wednesday they have discovered why in a discovery that challenges some basic tenets of Freudian theory. … Spending time in the same household and watching your mother care for your brother or sister is all it takes. This is all subconscious, of course, reported the researchers, who worked with Debra Lieberman of the University of Hawaii. … “It should regulate both altruism and incest disgust.” … What determined incest disgust and altruism was the same — how much time an older sibling spent watching his or her mother care for a younger one, or how much time the two spent together in the same household.

Mega gallery: 07′ LEGO video game art (from Digg) – a bunch of video game pictures made of Legos including Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Someone From Work Left Today And His Goodbye E-Mail Was Hilarious… (from Derek) – Hilarious email. Apparently this was originally written by Chris Kula, but I wonder if someone really sent this.

February 18, 2007February 17, 2007

Xbox 360 Reward

I previously posted on how to get 4 Free Xbox Live Arcade Games. The games are here! I just got an email today giving me codes to redeem Frogger and Joust.

Download your free Xbox Live® Arcade games.

You bought, registered and signed up. Now it’s our turn. With over 100 high-def games, we’re giving you some right now—free. The next generation keeps its gamers happy. Just follow these steps to download:

Turn on your Xbox 360™ and sign in to Xbox Live.

Highlight and select “Xbox Live Marketplace.”

Select “Redeem Code.”

Enter a code and download the game.

I personally registered with the 2 Free Games code before I found out there was a 3 and 4 free games code. People who used the 3 free games code said they also got Robotron: 2084. I haven’t heard of anyone that got the 4th game yet. If you did, please let us know which one it is. I also have a feeling that the 4 free games code may have been a fake published on the deals site, since the 2 codes were some what in chronological order.

Anyway, I’m not sure if you can still get in on this deal, but you’re more welcome to try. All these games were somewhat classics, not really next gen type, but they’re still rather fun.

February 17, 2007February 17, 2007

Ys – The Oath in Felghana

So I’ve been playing a new game called Ys – The Oath in Felghana (which is basically Ys III), a Japanese Action RPG. You can watch the trailer here. Goshtic first introduced me to Ys awhile back when he was playing Ys I and Ys II and uploaded some gameplay videos to me. The gameplay was awesome and really neat, but unfortunately it was in Japanese and given that it’s an RPG, it either meant I had to cheat (look at walkthrough) or not understand what I need to do.

However, Angelus brings to my attention a few days back that there have been people who have been translating the Ys series. The newest fan-translated is Ys – The Oath in Felghana. The person who has been working on these patches is Nightwolve. Unfortunately, the Felghana patch is still being worked on and the final version isn’t out yet. Unfortunately the beta translation patch for The Oath in Felghana isn’t posted on their site, but you should be able find it at your closest bittorrent index. The final translation patch for Ys I and Ys II are however posted, which I might get to after I finish The Oath in Felghana. A new Ys game seems to be released or will be releasing soon called Origin.

The game so far is like all typical RPGs. You’re some adventurer traveling through cities. Monsters started appearing out of nowhere. You help and you start to get to the bottom of this. You realize you have a special power and you get strong. The cool thing about Action RPGs is the fact it’s real-time and not turn based. So you just keep whacking enemies until they die.

I did hit a problem initially where the screen would black out and I was trapped inside this window. It didn’t respond to CTRL+ALT+DEL or WIN+L. I knew my machine wasn’t frozen because I could still see some mouse movement. Doesn’t this sound exactly like something else? ;p I wonder if desktop switcher would’ve worked here. I logged into another box of mine and remotely killed the application and was returned to my regular screen.

After searching online for the problem, apparently it has issues with ffdshow: Bug Report: FFDSHOW incompatibility. If you go into ffdshow’s video decoder configuration, in Info & Debug, add “YSF_Win.exe;” into Don’t use ffdshow in. After setting that, the game started up fine.

Random Crap:

Bathe in chocolate this Valentine’s Day – A Japanese spa is offering the perfect aphrodisiac for Valentine’s Day — chocolate baths. I’ve always wanted to jump into that chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Incredible Hand Made Sunglasses – Today you can see another “How to” video, but a video that will blow you away.You will see how people in China can make some amazing sunglasses.Now we have factories that make this work but China is providing what every company is looking for “low cost manufacturing”, that can maximize their profits.Now you can figure out how some people sell sunglasses just for $2.00.

Dishmaker: Never Wash Another Dish? (from Digg) – We actually linked to this story from Treehugger about a year ago, but with the advent of YouTube there is renewed interest in the product…at least to me. While the dishmaker appears unwieldy, this “dishwasher sized” apparatus can actually replace cabinets worth of dishes by storing them as flat disks. Only a small amount of pressure and heat is necessary to reshape the acrylic into a bowl (and back).

How To Open A Jar – The video features several different methods for opening stubborn jars, complete with scary zombie-like infomercial-style clapping as each jar falls. 3 easy ways to open a tightly sealed jar. I like the rubber band method.

Confessions of an eBay opium addict – A pleasure trip to the Internet auction site sent me into the hell of opium addiction. Could death be the only redemption? A guy gets addicted to poppy seeds which he was able to acquire in bulk from a “seed” seller.

We Didn’t Start This Website! (from Deadlock) – I don’t usually post YTMND (which I found out means You’re the Man Now, Dog), but this one’s tune was catchy and is a compilation of all the other YTMND websites.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire – What is the first name of George W. Bush? (from Digg) – This is the German version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? She was asked “Wie heisst George W. Bush mit Vornamen?” which I can only assume is the $100 (equivalent) question. That question translates to “What is George W. Bush’s first name?” After using 50/50 and doing a audience poll, she still got it wrong. I’m also very shocked with the response where 42% of the audience thought George W. Bush’s first name is Edmund. Did we ever have a president named Edmund?

Valued Customer… (from Digg) – After hearing yet another story of someone hitting the “invisible wall” on Comcast and getting the boot for a year, as a valued Comcast customer (I pay one of my scripters Internet bill, so the account is in my name) I decided to see what Comcast support officially had to say about the issue. I made up a story about a friend that had been booted off, and after a few minute wait to get into chat, the below transpired. Sorry about the image, it turns out you cant copy/paste a Comcast chat after it has finished. (don’t mind the spelling and typos, I was using my notebook on my lap. I’m sure you can all read “typing fast speak” anyways) From the conversation: While I am not able to locate a cap, I have been informed that it is around 200 Gigabytes in a month. Hmmmm, I’ve been awfully close.

Hot or Not Composite Images (from RayAlome) – a project where they grabbed all the images and ratings from hotornot.com and did an average composite of each rating range. The average face (as psychology also claims) is rather cute. 🙂

Uh Oh, Gmail Just Got Perfect (from Digg) – Google quietly added a small feature to Gmail this week called Mail Fetcher. When that feature launched, Gmail became perfect. Mail Fetcher allows users to access non-Gmail email accounts from within the Gmail interface. If you have a Yahoo email account, and a work email account, etc., you can simply access that email from within Gmail, using POP settings. Gmail will now work in a very similar way as Outlook does on the PC desktop. This is confirmed on Google’s website.

I’ve been using Kayak.com to find cheap airfares, but the other day Liam asked me what’s a good site, I recall reading an article about Farecast which predicts Airfare prices. I personally haven’t used it, but I’ve heard good stuff about it, where it can usually predict quite well when the cheapest time to get airplane tickets is.

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us (from Digg) – Web 2.0 in just under 5 minutes. A very interesting video with a catchy tune, using browsing and text to show the evolution of text and the web. A higher quality version is available for download here. Please note that this is the second draft and the final version will not be available until late February after I review all comments and revise the video. Please return for a new download link at that time.

He Said, She Said (from FuzzyWuzzy) – WINNER “Best Music Video” in the YouTube Underground contest! buy our debut EP “Malfunction” here: http://store.imusicast.com The story of a loafer who sits around and watches TV all day and a girlfriend who threatens to leave him if he doesn’t get off his ass and do something, is told via animated comic book. Inspired by the “Take On Me” video from the 80’s (back when MTV still showed videos), this video combines live action and animation to tell it’s tale. The video was written, directed, and animated by the band itself. Made on a ZERO dollar budget in an apartment in Oakland, Ca.

charleston style (from RayAlome) – the charleston to daft punk. thanks for the support, you may return to your dancing. A pretty good sync of this video: Charleston Demo — Al Minns & Leon James to what appears to be daft punk/techno music.

February 16, 2007

Cyanide and Happiness

I’ve been reading a new comic strip called Cyanide and Happiness. Rather funny, but humor’s a bit crude. Not sure if you’ll all like. Here’s a select few that I found:

Random Crap:

Wow, it’s been awhile since my last post. Been really busy at work with Beta 1 sign off and Deep Dive and have been pulling 10-14hr days. It’s finally over and I think things will return back to normal. I didn’t even get to watch 24 (2 episode special) till today. I’ve had to actually get to work before 10 for a few days, meaning I have to wake up at 9. I couldn’t believe how hard that was. I guess going to sleep at 4am didn’t help.

I’ve also been playing Ys: The Oath in Felghana (GameSpot), another thing that’s been keeping me away from blogging and keeping me up till 4am. I’ll be talking more about this in a later thread.

Finally, all my computer parts have arrived and I’ve built my HTPC. Unfortunately the copy of Vista I got was the incorrect version and somehow ended up with Enterprise instead of Ultimate. Will report to you about my HTPC later too with pictures! Too bad my HTPC doesn’t have a TV to broadcast on yet. Derek’s been making fun of me and saying I should’ve driven to Silverdale (1.5hrs each way = 3hrs of driving total). Maybe I’ll just show him and get a better, bigger, and cheaper TV. ;p

The youngest mother ever (from Digg) – The youngest mother was a 5 year old Peruvian girl. … Her name was Lina Medina, a Peruvian girl from the Andean village of Ticrapo… Lina’s parents initially thought their daughter had a large abdominal tumor… but Lina was eventually transferred to a hospital in Lima, where she delivered a six-pound baby boy by Cesarean section on 14 May 1939. Lina’s father was temporarily jailed on suspicion of incest, but he was released for a lack of evidence and authorities were never ableto determine who fathered Lina’s child. Even Snopes.com says it’s true. The question everyone’s asking is, if it’s not the father, who’s the child’s father?

Gela Skins (from Digg) – GelaSkins are made using premium grade vinyl with advanced adhesive technology by 3M and photo quality graphics by artists from around the world. These skins look rather cool and according to the Gearlog, they can be purchased at GelaSkins.

Vasectomy: $400. Speechless look on her face: priceless. (from Digg) – A hilarious story about how someone pwned his girlfriend when she claimed she was pregnant with his child.

Paradoxical Undressing (from Digg) – Victims of even slight hypothermia often exhibit altered states of judgment, which is known in mountaineering circles as being “cold stupid”. One common but especially bizarre behavior of hypothermia victims is a conundrum known as “paradoxical undressing”. … Paradoxical undressers remove their warm clothing even as they are freezing to death. An interesting read.

A few interesting films (from MS newsgroup):

Karma – We all make mistakes but do we always take responsibility for our actions? Karma has unique ways of catching up especially when we know what we are doing is wrong. The film was shot with a Panasonic HVX in two days with a crew of three (director, DP and one person to help out with lights/sound). Shot in Seattle in October whenever it stopped raining.
9 Seconds – Tucker Gray has the power to “rewind” time nine seconds. He finds this ability amusing, until the day comes when nine seconds forever changes his world.

Guide to Secret “Off The Menu” Items/ Call for Entries – Jamba Juice has an entire secret smoothie menu. We remember that it used to be on Wikipedia, but has mysteriously vanished. All the smoothies are made from stuff in the store, but most aren’t as healthy as the ones the promote. They are, however, in the register. Some secret ones to try: Strawberry Shortcake, White Gummy Bear, PB+J, Pink Starburst, Skittles, Red Gummy Bear, Sourpatch Kid, Now and Later, Push Pop, Fruity Pebbles. The consensus seems to be that “White Gummy Bear” is the most delicious substance known to man. I’ve gotta try that White Gummy Bear next time.

Enable Netflix Video-On-Demand – If you’re not one of the lucky people who has Netflix video-on-demand pushed to their account, you can click here to enable it.

Fla. teen hiccuping for over 3 weeks – Jennifer Mee can’t stop hiccuping. For more than three weeks now, the 15-year-old St. Petersburg teen has hiccuped close to 50 times a minute — despite the best efforts of doctors and home remedies.

Mother cat adopts pup rejected by mother – – Who says cats and dogs don’t get along? Workers at the Meriden Humane Society are marveling at a short-haired mother cat who has willingly adopted a six-day-old Rottweiler puppy that was rejected by its mother. Story wasn’t that interesting. The puppies were so cute though:

puppies adopted by cat

Chinese workers paint mountain green – Workers who began spraying Laoshou mountain last August told villagers they were doing so on orders of the county government but were not told why, media reports said Wednesday. Some villagers guessed officials of the surrounding Fumin county, whose office building faces the mountain, were trying to change the area’s feng shui — the ancient Chinese belief of harmonizing one’s physical environment for maximum health and financial benefit.

The man who fell 12,000 ft … and survived (from Digg) – It’s the most gut-wrenching, mesmerising and shocking clip of video footage imaginable. Shot from the tiny camera in the helmet of champion skydiver Michael Holmes, it records with chilling clarity what happened when he plummeted 12,000ft to earth. This article’s been posted everywhere, but The Mail apparently has exclusive rights to the video forcing all other news outlets to remove the video and even the YouTube uploads to remove it. You can watch the video at World exclusive skydiver video… watch the incredible footage here!

Got milk? Got beer! – Great news for beer and milk lovers: A liquor shop owner in Japan’s largest dairy farming region has stopped crying about local spilled milk and started making beer from it instead. Hmmm…

Top 5 ways to hustle free drinks (from The Consumerist) – The main theme of all these hustles is something called a Propostion Bet. Basically, a proposition bet is a challenge which looks like it only has one outcome…and it does…it always favors the person placing the wager. That’s because you know something the other folks don’t. You know the ‘challenge’ is always going to go your way. Always. A show in Britain called “The Real Hustle’ does these bets often as a way to show you how much fun they can be, and also how to avoid getting caught out by them. So, here we go. My Top 5 free drink hustles, in no particular order. Watch the videos, they’re rather interesting. So if you get hustled into buying others alcohol a lot, you should remember these tricks.

The Original Hamster Dance ?!? (from RayAlome) – I was watching some of my old Disney Cartoons when I recognized this one tune at the beginning that the rooster is whistling. then I realized, “Whoa, it’s the hamster dance”. this is a video I threw together bored on a Wednesday night. The clips are from the Disney Cartoon “Robin Hood” and the song is “The Hamster Dance”

The Most Amazing Waterfall In The World (from Digg) – The power of nature is truly magnificent! Enjoy this stunning video footage of one of the largest waterfall in the world. The waterfall Iguassu forms a natural border for Argentina and Brazil, and consists of about 275 waterfalls, sure beats the hell out of a fence…. I will have to agree that the pictures of this waterfall are AMAZING!

Zoo tours cash in on hot monkey love – Genevieve Chandler has been visiting the Lowry Park Zoo since she was a kid, but the tour she got the other night was definitely not the G-rated fare of her childhood. Among the things Chandler, 30, and her date learned on their “Wild at Heart” zoo tour: Male pigs have a unique corkscrew endowment and impressive, um, output; manatees have orgies and don’t really care if their partners are male or female; and a male porcupine has only one four-hour window a year to mate — very carefully, of course.

Britons ignorant about sex, survey reveals – Nearly one in three Britons think that if a woman jumps up and down, washes or urinates immediately after sex, she can prevent pregnancy, a survey revealed Monday. Haha!

I was reading this strip from Real Life Comics when I realize what the guy is saying is true: Have you ever noticed how “keeping it away from someone else” seems to be a common thread in cereal commercials? With Trix, they’re trying to keep it away from the rabbit, Fred’s always trying to keep Barney from eating his Fruity Pebbles. Hell – that leprechaun actively tries to keep kids from eating his lucky charms! Besides that, there’s the police trying to keep the robber and his dog from getting their hands (and paws) on Cookie Crisp. It’s just an interesting idea which I never noticed.

February 9, 2007February 9, 2007

AllFreeCalls lives on!

AT&T’s ‘Free Call’ Bill: $2 Million (from The Consumerist) –

Guess who got stuck with a big bill for all those “free” international calls touted by outfits like FuturePhone? None other than AT&T, which has filed a lawsuit in Iowa claiming that “deceitful and unlawful schemes” like FuturePhone’s caused a jump from $2,000 per month to $2 million per month in the fees billed AT&T by an Iowa rural telco.

…

Boiled down, AT&T’s main argument is that because the calls are not actually “terminated” in Iowa — AT&T says Iowa is just a midpoint in what is really an international call — AT&T shouldn’t have to pay the LECs the termination fees. Telco legal sources we talked to said that while the suit’s merit can certainly be contested, what it does immediately is give AT&T a legal reason to stall payments of such monthly bills, which could effectively strong-arm the startups out of business.

Ouch! $2 million. ~~Better start making those long distance calls through AllFreeCalls.net before they get slaughtered like FuturePhone by AT&T.~~ Initially I had assumed that AllFreeCalls.net will have the same fate as FuturePhone, but it’s apparently not so, leaving AllFreeCalls.net to probably be the only option left to make free long distance calls.

[UPDATE] Pat Phelan (owner of AllFreeCalls.net) left a comment in my previous blog entry. He says:

We are expanding rather than closing
www.allfreecalls.ie launched today bringing the same good deals to the Irish consumer

I’m curious then if Pat and AllFreeCalls was listed in AT&T’s lawsuit. If so, does that mean you guys will be fighting against AT&T to hold their end of the bargain?

Random Crap:

For women, nothing’s like the smell of men’s sweat – Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley said women who sniffed a chemical found in male sweat experienced elevated levels of an important hormone, along with higher sexual arousal, faster heart rate and other effects.

Japan subway ad (from Digg) – Here are our top 10 choises of advertisement in Tokyo’s trains or stations. Some interesting ad ideas like product sculptures and escalator hand rail ads, but the one that’s really cool are the tunnel movies: corvette ad inside the tunnel and Japan subway ad

Guy buys a commercial during Veronica Mars to propose to his girlfriend (from Deadlock) – On February 6th, at 9:23PM, Rand – Also known as ‘JP’ of MySuperProposal.com Proposed to his girlfriend, Geraldine, during her favorite show, Veronica Mars… I thought it was rather sweet and the Geraldine’s expression was unfathomable. Though her repeating screams of “What” and saying, “I think I’m going to puke.” did sort of ruined the moment, for me at least.

Man finds fingertip in chocolate bar in Germany – A man in Germany was put off his Italian chocolate treat when he noticed that a bump in the bar was not a nut but part of a human finger. … “I suppose it went unnoticed because there were nuts in the chocolate and it was hard to tell the difference,” the police spokesman said, adding the fingertip was being examined by forensic experts. *shivers*

Gadget toilet made for modern kings and queens – Ohio-based Roto-Rooter says its “Pimped Out John” is designed to “fulfil all your wildest bathroom dreams”. Special features include an iPod music player and speakers, an Xbox video game console, a refrigerator filled with drinks and snacks and a cycling exercise machine. … Any resident of the United States could win this “gleaming monument to personal convenience” by entering the sweepstake at www.rotorooter.com before April 2.

roto-rooter pimped out john

Sex vs clothes: women come out of the closet. – Women on average say they would be willing to give up sex for 15 months for a closet full of new apparel, with 2 percent ready to abstain from sex for three years in exchange for new duds, according to a new survey of about 1,000 women in 10 U.S. cities. Sixty-one percent of women polled said it would be worse to lose their favorite article of clothing than give up sex for a month.

Zen And The Art Of ToughBooks (from Digg) – If you’re a regular reader of the TrustedReviews notebook section, you will have seen coverage of Panasonic’s ToughBook range. The ToughBooks differ from most other notebooks by being, well, tough. Panasonic has built a reputation for itself by creating notebooks that can function in the most inhospitable environments. Thinkpads are rather tough themselves. I was informed by a intern who worked at Intel over the summer who’s job was to record results from dropping laptops X feet from the ground and see if the CPU survived, and he told me that IBM Thinkpads were better than the ToughBooks. Then again, they were only checking the CPU and not any of the other hardware.

Woman on the wrong bus lost for 25 years (from Digg) – A rather sad story of a woman who boards the wrong bus, followed by another wrong bus and ends up in the middle of somewhere where she neither spoke nor understood the local language. Without money, she ended up begging on the streets for 5. She was was arrested in 1987 for being an illegal immigrant, but sent to work at a hostel when no communication could work. Finally, last month, a group of students that spoke her language came and helped her get home.

Little Gamers – That last room – What’s the last room for? Computer room. Ah, the mastrubatorium.

Dynamite Surfing (from Derek) – This is by far one of the coolest videos I’ve come across in a long time. These guys in Copenhagen surf a wave created by a huge stick of dynamite thrown into the water. Absolutely amazing, that took a lot of nerve to pull off.

Awesome Stop Motion Paper Fight – This guy has created an awesome stop motion paper fight movie. I cant imagine how many hours this took but in the end I think it was well worth it.

February 8, 2007February 8, 2007

Free Prizes for Playing the Xbox 360

Got an Xbox 360 and well, play games? According to Xbox Rewards: Take Your Gaming to the Next Level (from MS newsgroup), they’ll be awarding players based on how many GP gamer points they currently have. If you look at my side bar, I currently have 945. Pretty weak, I know, but I’m not really much of a gamer. The prizes will be distributed as follow:

Level 1 (0 – 4,999 annual Gamerscore): You are developing your skills and gaining experience. Take some time to get used to the program and learn your way around. The Challenges will typically be easier and the rewards smaller. Prizes include: The popular Xbox Live Arcade game Contra (rated: E10+) from Konami (Retail Value $5.00). Exclusive Old Spice Level 1 Xbox Rewards gamer picture. An experience upgrade to Xbox Rewards Level 2.
Level 2 (5,000 – 9,999 annual Gamerscore): We are going to turn up the heat a bit. You have proved that you know how to play and are willing to put in the gaming time to reap the benefits. The Challenges will get a bit more difficult. Never fear, the reward value goes up as well. Prizes include: The popular Xbox Live Arcade game Contra (rated: E10+) from Konami Exclusive Old Spice Level 2 Xbox Rewards gamer picture. 100 Microsoft Points. An experience upgrade to Xbox Rewards Level 3.
Level 3 (over 10,000 annual Gamerscore): This is an arena filled with the who’s who of gaming. We don’t want to claim that Level 3 is an exclusive club, but if you find yourself winning Challenges here, you’ve obviously pulled out the big guns, so enjoy while it lasts. Prizes include: The popular Xbox Live Arcade game Contra (rated: E10+) from Konami Exclusive Old Spice Level 3 Xbox Rewards gamer picture. 200 Microsoft Points. Old Spice T-Shirt (Estimated Retail Value $10.00). A copy of Fuzion Frenzy 2 game (rated: E10+) (Estimated Retail Value $50.00).

Unfortunately I doubt I’ll be able to reach 5k given that amount of time, but this program is rather neat. The registration begins on February 12th at www.xbox.com/rewards. Enjoy!

Random Crap:

If Peter Griffin had a real daughter (from ApeChild)

12 second Cure for Hiccups (from Digg) – an interesting idea where you hold your breath while stretching and bending your abdomen. Personally the holding breath trick usually works. If not, I pretend to take gulps of air down my air pipe (simulating drinking gulps of water without breathing).

People have been asking me what the difference between XP and Vista is and I really can’t give much of a good answer. There’s better security, nicer UI, tons of revamped applications, etc. Others also have been asking me what the difference between the versions (Ultimate, Home, Business, etc) were. I found this site: Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate – Comparison. They do a pretty good comparison between the versions, showing you what each version has and what each version is missing.

I was watching this magic trick: Jeremy Wai – Shadow Card Magic and the after clicking on a few more videos, I ended up here: Easy Float and the music was captivating. It sounded very much like ERA, but if it was ERA then I should’ve heard of it before. Apparently not. The song was indeed ERA and it’s called Ameno (Remix) on their 1st album.

How the “Pavement Picasso” Does It (from MS newsgroup) – A time lapse video of Julian Beever creating the Aveeno Fountain of Youth chalk drawing in Union Square, NYC on 01/15/07. See a full gallery of Julian’s work at pavementpicasso’s photos. They also posted this video: Julian Beever ( The Amazing Art of Julian Beever ) – Take a look at The Amazing Art of Julian Beever. It is hard to believe what you are seeing. This video meets VPG standards. You’ve probably seen all those 3D pavement drawings or sometimes referred to as Virtual Street Reality. The 1st video shows you how one actually does it.

The Eye of Sauron – Tesla Coils (from Tesla Downunder)

Transcript: U.S. ‘friendly fire’ video (from Derek) – The Sun newspaper in Britain has released what it says is a cockpit video from a U.S. fighter jet being used in the investigation of a “friendly-fire” incident in which a British soldier was killed. You can watch the videos here:The “friendly-fire” death of a British soldier in Iraq. (p1) and The “friendly-fire” death of a British soldier in Iraq. (p2). I was shocked with today’s technology that we’re still unable to correctly identified friendly units. There was a phrase in the transcript I wasn’t familiar with: Hey, POPOV34, abort your mission. You got a, looks we might have a blue on blue situation. According to Wikipedia: The U.S. and British military refer to these incidents as blue on blue,[2] which derives from military exercises where friendly forces are “blue” and enemy forces are “red”.

Windows Vista’s SuperFetch and ReadyBoost Analyzed (from B$) – Vista comes with two mechanisms that effectively reduce the time required to launch popular applications: SuperFetch analyzes your behavior and proactively puts applications into available main memory, so they can be launched quicker. Of course this requires as much main memory as possible, which is where the second feature engages: ReadyBoost allows expanding the main memory size by plugging in a USB 2.0 Flash drive. Although the data transfer performance of USB 2.0 devices cannot compete with modern hard drives, access times for Flash memory are literally nonexistent, making these devices a nice and particularly cheap choice. Derek’s been using ReadyBoost and has nothing but praise for it, but for the price of 1 stick of flash memory (free after rebate), I’d be definite to try out these features.

My name got posted in The Consumerist: House Burglar’s Advice For Hiding Money. 😉

All about your child’s allowance (from The Consumerist) – a very good guide on when to start teaching your kids about money and how to train them.

As soon as your child begins to express a sincere interest in material wants (as in, “I want that!”), it’s time for an allowance. Depending upon the child, that’s probably around the ages of 3 to 5.

The first mistake most parents make is starting too late. The majority of parents wait until their children are tweens (9 to 12 years old) and they miss out on the opportunity to discuss money with young children who are more apt to listen to, and take, their parent’s advice. By the time kids are teenagers, they have additional influences on their spending habits, including friends, advertisements, pop culture and the media.

Woman uses daughter’s key to ‘steal’ car – A college student who reported that his car was stolen got a surprise when he learned a woman had mistaken it for her daughter’s car and taken it- using her key. … Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong said key technology wasn’t as sophisticated two decades ago, and there were only so many ways to cut a key, making it possible for such a mix-up to occur. He said the company now has a microchip embedded in the keys for 90 percent of its vehicles that allows them to start only with the correct key.

February 4, 2007February 4, 2007

Burger King Xbox 360 games for only 99¢ each

Burger King games just $0.99 (from Digg) – I was going through the Burger King at Redstone Arsenal yesterday and noticed that the BK games were just $0.99 with a combo meal. So, I finished out my collection and bought Sneak King for a buck. Supplies are limited. The BK Gamer website still lists the games as $3.99 each, but there’s been several confirmations. Not sure if this is nationwide, but if you’re visiting a Burger King and see they’re on sale for a buck, please let us know.

Even though I purchased 2 for $3.99 each, they were definitely worth the money. I can’t say that’s the case for their food. But it did get me to go into Burger King twice when the promo started. It must definitely helped them: Burger King Earnings Rise 40% Helped By Xbox Promotion. I wonder if this price decrease is to get more people to come in.

I’ve posted my reviews on the 2 games I got:
Burger King releases Xbox 360 games
Pocketbike Racer

Random Crap:

Coach fired for ‘check manhood’ comment – A high school coach who told his players at halftime to reach into their pants to “check their manhood” before returning to the basketball court was fired.

Joey Chestnut downs a record 182 wings – Professional competitive eater Joey Chestnut devoured a record 182 chicken wings Friday to win his second consecutive Wing Bowl, a gut-busting annual event that draws thousands of revelers to the city’s sports complex in the pre-dawn hours. His face just wants to make me want to throw up. “I love to eat,” said Chestnut, 23, of San Jose, Calif. “Today I was swallowing wings, swallowing bones, whatever it took.“ Apparently he swallowed the wing whole (including bones) – from SueOn.

Getting fabulous hair takes a bit of bull … semen – An upmarket London beauty salon says it can give your hair the ultimate shine by treating it with a mixture that includes semen from thoroughbred bulls.

Windows that become mirrors at the flip of a switch (from digg) –

A fancy new glass has been developed in Japan, one that promises to cut down on the energy usage of buildings everywhere. It looks like a normal window regularly, but at the flip of a switch it turn to a mirror. How does this affect energy costs, you ask? Walk with me.

When used as exterior windows, the mirrors can deflect the sun on hot days. This keeps the interior cool, cutting down on AC costs. When the temperature drops, you can turn the windows back into regular windows, letting the warm sun filter on through and lowering heating costs. It’s win/win, really. Plus it would be really cool to see someone flip the switch and an entire skyscraper suddenly don a mirrored shell. Heck, if it isn’t too outrageously expensive I don’t see why this couldn’t catch on in residential building as well. Time will tell.

A triple-venti-Americano-decaf surprise? (The Consumerist) – Consumer Reports finds McDonald’s coffee better than Starbucks. The magazine reported that McDonald’s was “decent and moderately strong. Although it lacked the subtle top notes needed to make it rise and shine, it had no flaws.” As for Starbucks, the magazine called it “strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open.”

KC Police Seek Answers in Case of Arrested Woman Who Miscarried (from Digg) – For now, Sofia Salva will let her attorney and the videotape of two police officers ignoring her pleas for medical help speak for her. Salva, who said she was three months pregnant and bleeding when Kansas City police stopped her for traffic violations last February, believes she wouldn’t have had a miscarriage had officers aided her. A police videotape released Tuesday brought attention to the incident. Salva also has filed a wrongful death and personal injuries lawsuit against the Kansas City Police Department and two officers who arrested her. “It’s tragic, it’s disappointing, it’s frustrating, it’s sickening at times,” Salva’s attorney, Andrew Protzman, said Wednesday. “This is a lady who was in severe medical distress and clearly needed emergency medical attention and medical treatment.” Like the attorney says, it’s a tragedy.

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study (from Digg) – Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today. Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Sigh…

Sleepwalking woman had sex with strangers – Sleep medicine experts have successfully treated a rare case of a woman having sex with strangers while sleepwalking. … Circumstantial evidence, such as condoms found scattered around the house, alerted the couple to the problem. On one occasion, her partner awoke to find her missing, went searching for her and found her engaged in the sex act.

Blondie Unlocks Car (from Crooked Brains) – An unique way for women to recover keys they forgot in a locked car. Is this real? Can you really use a tennis ball to do this? If you can, I’d imagine any sort of air pump would also work. Maybe it’s just certain cars?

Conan O’Brien Defeats Serena Williams in Wii Sports Tennis (from Digg) – Conan O’Brien, popular late night host on NBC, defeated Serena Williams in a Wii Sports Tennis match on his show Thursday night, questioning the authenticity of the recently completed Australian Open. Well, not really but it was entertaining to watch.

Happy end to iguana penis saga (from Digg) – Mozart, the iguana whose penis was surgically removed after he got a permanent erection, is back with his girlfriends and enjoying a healthy sex life again. As the title of the Digg entry proclaims: THE BACKUP WORKS!

Woman with bionic arm regains sense of touch (from Digg) – A woman fitted with the world’s first “bionic arm” controlled by thought alone has been given back a sense of feeling. Claudia Mitchell, 26, a former US marine, regained the ability to carry out simple tasks such as cutting up food when she was fitted with the prosthetic arm last year. Now doctors have re-routed the ends of arm nerves to a patch of skin on her chest — allowing her to regain the sensation of having her lost hand touched. Awesome! Cyborgs here we come!

Orange Snow in Omsk, Russia (from Digg) – Yesterday a strange phenomena happened in Omsk region Russia. Pretty vast territory of Omsk region was covered with a snow that had an unusual color. It was orange. Now we have a few photos, mainly screenshots from Russian TV channels. There is still no one exact explanation about the origin of orange color of this snow.

Russian Puzzle (from Digg) – The challenge is to fit the five pieces into the square. The pieces can touch, but they may not overlap. Use the mouse and click and drag to move the pieces. To rotate a piece, press the SHIFT button, and then click the mouse button. Pretty difficult puzzle. The key is in the rotation of the shapes (clicking while holding down the shift key). I finally gave up and took a look at the hint.