Sleuth – HD Trailer

About a week ago, Apple posted an High Definition trailer for the upcoming movie: Sleuth (IMDb). As I later found out, Sleuth (2007) is actually a remake of the 1972 Sleuth (IMDb). I do have to say, that’s one expensive DVD on where the lowest price on Amazon.com is $59.99. What’s even cooler about this movie is the fact that Michael Caine is in both movies, however his row is switched. Michael Caine plays the wife’s lover in the 1972 version and plays the scheming husband in the 2007 version.

There’s been people saying Jude Law is the new Michael Caine as the Alfie remake where Alfie was played by Michael Caine in the 1966 version, Jude Law played Alfie n the 2004 version.

sleuth trailer poster

Anyway, the reason I’m posting about this movie is that less than a day later that Apple posted the HD trailer, they decided to pull it off their website. Both HD Trailers and HD-Trailers.net had linked to the trailers, but those links are now currently dead.

Fortunately, I had downloaded the 1080p version and with the request from filmomanas, I uploaded the trailer.

Look like Apple decided to completely pull this trailer from their site. I can’t even find the regular movie trailer info page anymore. I still have my copy of the 1080p trailer which I downloaded yesterday and decided to upload it to FileSend: Download Link

I decided to use FileSend because it allow uploads of greater than 100MB (seems to be a limitation on many of the file sharing sites). The 1080p trailer itself is 129MB. However, it does have a wait time of 30 seconds, which is the downside. I took that into account, but the fact it has a really fast download speed, made me choose it over a couple others. I was able to download from FileSend at a sustained 600KB/s. Unfortunately, I don’t have the 480p and the 720p version. Other than that, enjoy!

The trailer makes the movie look quite interesting.

Transformers

I watched Transformers today with Stanman. I entered the theater not expecting much, but I did hear some good things from friends and I do like some of Michael Bay films (e.g. Armageddon and The Rock). Speaking of which, Armageddon was actually mentioned inside the movie. Anyway, I was a big fan of transformers as a kid. I remember watching transformers and G.I. Joe back to back.I totally bought into the idea of having transformable cars and machines and play imaginary battles with it. I personally thought the movie was rather fun. Storyline was expected, but not bad. The special effects were awesome. Definitely a watcher if you were ever a fan of transformers as it stayed true to many aspects. They did change a few things around, but you’ve gotta give this guy credit for using the original voice actor for Optimus Prime from the cartoon series.

Official Site
IMDb: User Rating: 8.0/10 (43,361 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B- / Yahoo! Users: A-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 56% / Average Rating: 5.8/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com Soundtrack
Amazon.com Showtimes
MY RATING: 8/10

transformers postertransformers postertransformers postertransformers postertransformers postertransformers postertransformers postertransformers postertransformers postertransformers postertransformers postertransformers poster

Spoilers (Show)

It does look like they set up the ending of the movie for a potential sequel. I want to see Dinobots!

There was a trailer showing a farewell party and suddenly a giant explosion in New York City. You could see the head of the Statue of Liberty flying across the street. No one knows for sure what this trailer is about. Rumors is that J. J. Abrams is remaking a popular Japanese movie in English and some people have suggested Godzilla due to the noise it was making. You can watch the trailer on Apple or read more about it on IMDb. The interesting thing about this movie is the date: 1-18-08, which is the day I turn 25. Well, maybe it was only interesting to me.

Night Watch / Day Watch

So a few weeks ago, Stanman and friends and I got together to watch Night Watch.

Official Site
IMDb: User Rating: 6.4/10 (12,939 votes)
Yahoo! Movies:The Critics: B- / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 58% / Average Rating: 5.9/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
MY RATING: 6/10

night watch posternight watch posternight watch poster

For those that don’t know, Night Watch is a high budget Russian movie. It originally was a novel written by Sergei Lukyanenko. The story is actually comprised of 4 books:

Day Watch has already been released as a movie (was also recently played throughout the film festivals). Stanman and friend and I watched it 2 days after Night Watch.

Official Site
IMDb: User Rating: 7.1/10 (3,325 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B- / Yahoo! Users: B+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 65% / Average Rating 6/10
Apple Trailer
MY RATING: 7/10

day watch poster

Twilight Watch (the movie) is already in production and plans to be released later this year to complete the trilogy. I’m not sure how correct this is, but I’ve heard that the 3rd movie, Twilight Watch will end the series (film wise) and there won’t be a 4th film to compliment the 4th book.

To put in simple words, the Watch series is a Russian take on or super humans, known as the Others. The following paragraph from Wikipedia gives a good background of the story:

The division of Light and Dark had always existed between the Others. Those of the Light believed it was their duty to help the weak and the helpless. Those of the Dark shunned all obligations. They did what they wanted, regardless of morals and consequences. For many millennia, the two sides fought a vicious battle. Both were willing to use any means necessary to achieve victory. Eventually they realized that if they continued their battle, neither side would survive. The leaders of both sides forged the Grand Treaty—a set of laws to govern the way the Others used their powers. The Light Others created the Night Watch, the Dark Others the Day Watch, to ensure that neither side would violate the Treaty. The Inquisition, a group composed of both Dark and Light Others, was created to ensure that neither side became too powerful.

The first movie was called Night Watch because during the night, the Light Others who form the Night Watch are responsible in making sure the Dark Others don’t break any rules. The second movie was called Day Watch because during the day, the Dark Others who form the Day Watch are responsible in making sure the Light Others don’t break any rules.

Spoilers: (Show)

One of the interesting aspect are the vampires in this movie. Not all Dark Others are vampires, but Dark Other when given the license to, can create vampires from regular humans. I have no idea if this closely resembles the Russian culture of vampires or not, but nonetheless, it was an interesting contrast. They do feed on blood like regular western vampires, but there are some major differences that Stanman pointed out. First of all, when Anton was fighting the vampires, they would disappear and the only way to see them was by looking through a mirror. In western culture, when you look at a mirror, you don’t see the vampire. Another interesting thing was Anton had to drink blood (pig’s blood since it closely resembles human blood) to get a feeling of where the vampires are. To protect oneself from vampires, they wore a chain mail / barbed wire like thing around their neck. We thought that was ingenious. Vampires typically suck blood from your neck, so what the heck is with silver bullets and garlic and crosses. You want to protect your neck!

This entry is already very long, but if you’ve watched the movies, you must be super confused by now. Night Watch was very dark and horrible at explaining what the heck was going on. Day Watch on the other hand was somewhat light and it was easy to grasp. Then again, Stanman filled us in on some key details he read off Wikipedia. Here are some excellent readings on Wikipedia:

HD-Trailers.net

Here’s my latest project: HD-Trailers.net

Screenshot:
screenshot of hd-trailers.net

First, I attempted to do this with a blog: HD Trailers, however I thought it would be much cooler if I could represent in a much easier to use interface. So I started playing around ideas. The 1st part was coming out with a data structure that would be easily extensible. I thought about XML at first, but I’m not that familiar with PHP and their XML encoding/decoding. I ended up taking the easy way out and am using the included serializer for PHP, which turned out quite useful.

This started as a pet project because I enjoy checking out movie trailers and I definitely enjoy watching stuff in high definition (especially 1080p). However, neither Apple and Yahoo make it easy to download these trailers and I don’t particularly like being forced to watch it in Quicktime, since the free version Quicktime doesn’t allow full screen and is actually quite a poorly written video player. I’d much prefer to watch it in Media Player Classic or VLC.

I’ve figured the trick to download Apple HD trailers awhile back, and recently started collecting trailers from Yahoo! Movies. I do have to say that trailers at Yahoo! Movies are typically sub par when compared to their Apple counterpart, but they also have some non-overlapping HD trailers (like Transformer and Golden Compass).

The parsing of Yahoo’s HD trailers page was actually a bit more difficult than Apple’s. I actually had to download a qtl which redirects me to makeplaylist.dll and includes the SID to the trailer file. It took me awhile to figure out that in order to download the correct qtl file, the referrer has to be within Yahoo’s domain, which was easy to set up with PHP’s curl.

Halfway through my project, Apple decided to change their trailers page completely and I thought I was screwed. However, Apple switched to JSON (Javascript Object Notation) and in the latest PHP, they support JSON decoding, so that made my life even simpler and also gives me additional data which I wasn’t collecting before.

I just finished the caching system, where instead of parsing in the data table and creating the entire page for every load, it’ll be loading from a static class unless something triggers it to to delete the cache. The data is automatically updated every 24 hours and is smart in the fact that the cache will only be deleted if changes have been made. Individual movie pages also have a similar caching system.

New Projects and Blogs

Wow… It’s been awhile since my last post, but I’ve been working on a new project which isn’t quite ready to be revealed yet. It will be in due time. I’ve also started 3 separate blogs:

  • HD Trailers – A blog about HD (High Definition) Trailers and how to download them
  • Modern Evolution – Evolution is happening everywhere around us today.
  • Sue Happy – Just how “Sue Happy” is America?

The latter 2 are just collections of articles which I find particularly interesting, while also giving my opinion on them. The 1st one (HD Trailers) might be retired once my “project” gets completed.

Random Crap:

Perfect Petzzz (from Cari) – These sleeping puppies and kittens plush / stuffed animals are so cute!!!

Yahoo! Be a Better Planet (from SD) – Yahoo! is on a mission to find and reward America’s most eco-friendly city. Can your hometown claim that title? Join in now to help your city win a fleet of hybrid taxis, and get free compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) for your efforts. I’ve also been a big fan for fluorescent light. Not only because it saves me a bunch on my electricity bill, but also the fact that it’s white light compared to the yellowish light most regular light bulbs emit. Also, you never burn yourself trying to touch one, because it just never gets that hot.

Prosthetics (from Digg) – Robert Barron is a master of disguises. He uses his artistry to create realistic body parts for those who are missing them.

The man who owns the InternetKevin Ham is the most powerful dotcom mogul you’ve never heard of, reports Business 2.0 Magazine. Here’s how the master of Web domains built a $300 million empire.

Online Savings from Washington Mutual (from SD) – Wamu apparently has joined the rank of the online high interest savings account game. Although 5% isn’t shocking to many, the good thing about Wamu is the fact they have branches everywhere. You can easily link up your checking account and online savings account. When you use your Wamu ATM card at any ATM, they won’t charge you any fee. I’m not certain if they’ll refund the fees that the ATM itself charges, but Wamu has always been customer friendly in my opinion.

Robot Arm Pours Beer Into Glass (from MS newsgroup) – You’ve probably seen the Kuka Robotic Arm in other videos before (one even had it swinging samurai swords around), but this one is program to perfect beer pouring from a bottle into a glass.

Hjo3 posted this awhile back about how the opening song of BPS (Battle Programmer Shirase) is actually using the melody of Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up. I never knew this, then again I’m not that familiar with songs from the 80’s and 70’s, but this was interesting trivia knowledge. I do have to say, Rick Astley’s voice doesn’t quite match his face.

Ant Buster (from Digg) – Another Tower Defense type of game, where this time, there’s actually more freedom for the attackers, and the attackers (ants) are actually stealing pieces of pizza from you.

Xbox LIVE Brings You Even More Matrix Content (from Ars) – I got my copy a few days ago. Circuit City had it on sale for $20 (price mistake) and they actually decided to ship 1 copy per customer, which was pretty cool. Then again, I don’t have a HD DVD player yet, but Matrix being my favorite movie of all time, I have a hard time deciding if I should sell this or not. Plus the fact, I can download the Animatrix in HD via Xbox Live makes it even tougher. When you purchase The Complete Matrix Trilogy, you will also receive a token in the box to download the entire Animatrix series from Xbox LIVE® Marketplace. Unfortunately, I posted this a bit too late, but you were also able to download HD trailers and clips of the Matrix via Xbox Live: From May 15 through May 25, download free content like HD trailers from all three Matrix movies and some of your favorite scenes in HD like “Bullet Time in the Subway” and “Morpheus fighting Agent Smith.” You can also purchase and download themes for all three films plus Animatrix.

Captive shark had ‘virgin birth’ (from Digg) – Female hammerhead sharks can reproduce without having sex, scientists confirm. Story was somewhat interesting, but the funniest was when commented: Jesus Shark?

Top 4 Ways You’re Wasting Gas When You Think You’re Saving It (from Digg) –

  1. Driving across town to save a nickel on a gallon of gas.
  2. Driving on the highway with their windows down to avoid using the air conditioner.
  3. Driving with their truck’s tailgate down.
  4. Accelerating extremely slowly.

#1 is a toughie. I agree that it’s rather stupid to drive across tow to save a nickel per gallon, but what about driving 3 blocks or planning a trip across town so you can stop by the cheap gas station? CDMCC and I had an argument about this awhile back. It wasn’t really about saving on gas, but the time you spent driving 3 extra blocks to save a dime per gallon. If you have a 15 gallon tank, that equates to a saving of $1.50. To drive those 3 extra blocks, you’ve wasted more than 5 minutes already. Is 5 minutes of time really worth the $1.50 savings? I dunno, but coming from a family that squeezes the most out of a penny, I’m always willing to drive the 3 extra blocks, and with tools like Seattle Gas Prices (or the corresponding gas price searching tool for your area), it makes it easy to find the gas stations that is cheap and not too far out of your way.

#2 is also something I’ve known for awhile, since Mechy often talked about aerodynamics of car. Opening windows just breaks that efficiency.

15 (Painfully) Unforgettable Cartoon Theme Songs (from Digg) – It’s tragic, really. For every math formula forgotten, every anniversary that passes unremembered, and every pet ferret dead from starvation, there’s a cartoon theme song from our youth, tenaciously hogging our limited mental hard drive space. In what is perhaps some sort of small attempt to exorcise these demonically persistent tunes from the depths of our consciousness, we’ve ranked 15 of them through the highly technical and thoroughly researched process of writing down whichever ones we could remember/find on YouTube first. Enjoy. Haha! Ungsunghero and I enjoyed this post as it sure brought back a bunch of memories. We even pointed out a few that they forgot to include: Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck. What happened to cartoons? They use to be awesome and now, they’re just the same stupid crap over and over again.

An easy guide to protecting your identity

Speak of the devil. Just a few days ago I mentioned check fraud and secure ink. Today in the mail, I received from Staples SpeakEasy, a program where they send you new products for free before they launch in hopes to get some feedback. I’ve gotten cd wallets, staplers, mousepad, etc. This month they’re featuring an identity protection theme which included 2 Uni-ball 207 Retractable Gel-Ink Pens and an “An easy guide to protecting your identity.” booklet.

The gel pens feature a “specially formulated ink – helps prevent check fraud”. I had mentioned about “secure” ink a few days ago.

I was about to throw the booklet away when I noticed it was endorsed if not partially written by Frank Abagnale. If that doesn’t ring the bell, it’s the character that Leonardo DiCaprio played in Catch Me If You Can. He’s also the real guy that cashed $2.5 million in fraudulent checks.

Flipping through the book, I was shocked to find it would be extremely useful to someone who’s not familiar with identity theft and how to protect oneself. The booklet has about 40 pages and if I wasn’t lazy, I’d scan the booklet for you to check it out.

The main topics he brings up is:

  • Checking your credit report three times a year
  • Shredding outdated personal information
  • Using tricky passwords
  • Installing firewalls and antivirus software
  • Taking in your mail as soon as it’s delivered

Of course Staples takes this opportunity to introduce you to their secure ink pens, their microcut shredder, and even their security software bundle.

Another interesting section is how to detect when your identity has been compromised. He gives examples of how to go through a credit report, how to only use 1 standard name for everything you apply for, and question why a certain individual/company would want your your social security number, etc.

Music and Lyrics

This movie was actually rather fun to watch. A pretty feel good movie talking about a has-been 80s pop star trying to come back. Drew Barrymore was pretty cute in it too.

Official Site
IMDb: User Rating: 6.8/10 (8,759 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B- / Yahoo! Users: B
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 64% / Average Rating: 6/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
Amazon.com HD DVD
Amazon.com Blu-ray
MY RATING: 6/10

music and lyrics postermusic and lyrics poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Do check out the music video they made for this video:
PoP! Goes My Heart – Music & Lyrics (from FuzzyWuzzy)

The song’s actually quite catchy, despite how funny it is. As FuzzyWuzzy says:

haha
music and lyrics is so bad it’s good
god i love hugh grant movies
i wasn’t going to lose my head but then pop…goes my heart…
oh god that’s the best fucking lyric ever!!!!
so new wave
</sarcasm>

Secret Sauce

RayAlome linked me to this video: United 300 which is a parody on what I can only assume to be a merge of United Flight 93 (during 9/11) and 300 (the new movie with Leonidas and his 300 Spartans). Hilarious parody I must say.

This ultimately led me to their website: Secret Sauce, which had a ton more hilarious parodies. Here’s a few I wanted to share:

  • The DefartedThe follow up to the Academy Award winning film. A spoof on The Departed about farting
  • Little Miss JackassLittle Miss Sunshine’s Olive Hoover does stunts, a 9-year-old girl would Never do! Submitted for consideration in the 2007 MTV MOVIE AWARDS SPO
  • How to Bang My Wife – a parody of The Fray’s How to Save A life about trying to convince your wife to have sex with you.
  • HairyBack – a parody of Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack about hairy chests and backs.

Random Crap:

Patada subte Times Square (from Chokoboii) – algun dia me tenia que tocar a mi filmar algo asi. While break dancing, a little toddler wanders into the dance area and gets back-flip kicked. OUCH! A day or 2 later, someone’s made a remix of it: REMIX: Patada subte Times Square Techno Video Game Remix (from RayAlome). I couldn’t help but laugh.

My eBay Fox – My Friendly Fox (from Digg) – MyEBayFox is a version of the popular Firefox web browser that has been customized to provide you with a better eBay experience. Not really suggesting you to switch over to My eBay Fox, but I thought the fox was awfully cute!

my ebay foxmy ebay foxmy ebay foxmy ebay fox

Details emerge on IRS plans to tax eBay auctionsInternet auction sites will only be required to report customer revenue information if the customer does more than 100 separate transactions in a fiscal year and generates more than $5,000 in gross proceeds. Yay! I’m not covered!

Bank sells house complete with owner’s corpseThe corpse, preserved by salty air in the seaside town of Roses after an apparent death by natural causes, was discovered by Jorge Giro, who entered the house for the first time on Saturday after buying it at the auction, El Pais said.

Woman, cops exchange pepper spray blastsClay was originally going to be charged with disorderly conduct, according to police. She now faces felony battery and drug charges, plus misdemeanor charges. Sigh…

Baby issued Illinois gun ID cardBubba Ludwig can’t walk, talk or open the refrigerator door — but he does have his very own Illinois gun permit. … The card lists the baby’s height (2 feet, 3 inches), weight (20 pounds) and has a scribble where the signature should be. You’d think there’d be some age requirement to own a gun…

Indian train driver asks passengers to pushHundreds of Indian rail passengers got more than they had bargained for when the driver of their train asked them to get out and push. It took more than half an hour to move the stalled electric train 12 feet (4 metres) so that it touched live overhead wires and was able to resume its journey, officials said on Wednesday.

An Amputee Sprinter: Is He Disabled or Too-Abled? (from Digg) – Pistorius wants to be the first amputee runner to compete in the Olympics. But despite his ascendance, he is facing resistance from track and field’s world governing body, which is seeking to bar him on the grounds that the technology of his prosthetics may give him an unfair advantage over sprinters using their natural legs. Interesting… I’m not sure where I stand on this issue, but I do know, if people are allowed to modified their bodies to compete and if it’s proven that having these prosthetic legs allow you to run faster, many will be willing to chop off their own legs in order to compete for the gold. It’s the same reason why some people might want to become cyborgs or fuse weapons with their bodies. You can tell I’ve watched way too much anime. Then again, does becoming an amputee render you incapable of competing against regular people. It’s a tough question and I’m not sure there’s 1 correct answer.

* BE FOREWARNED, THE FOLLOWING LINKS CONTAIN DISTURBING AND DISGUSTING PHOTOS * I thought I knew insane. I didn’t know insane. (from Digg) – A very sad and disturbing story about the roommate from hell. While leaving poo everywhere was a side effect, she obviously needed help. Another blog entry has popped up about roommates from hell: People lived hereA guy from England rented his flat, people were living there and go away. and when the host returned he saw it.

The Lighthouse: An Innovative Green SkyscraperThe Lighthouse is another innovative green skyscraper to be constructed in Dubai. For energy generation, it will have three enormous 225 kilowatt wind turbines (29 meters in diameter), and 4000 photovoltaic panels on the south facing façade. To optimize performance and operational periods, the turbines have windward directional wind vanes or limited yaw. I really want to visit Dubai one of these days.

Strange alien world made of ‘hot ice’ (from /.) – Although the parent star is much cooler than the Sun, the planet orbits 13 times closer to the star than Mercury’s orbit around the Sun. That means the surface must be a blazing hot 300° C or more, keeping water in its atmosphere in vapor form. But the high pressures in the planet’s interior would compress the water so much that it would stay solid even at hundreds of degrees Celsius – the expected temperatures inside the planet. There are a variety of exotic ‘hot ice’ states possible in such conditions, with names like ‘Ice VII’ and ‘Ice X’.

Making work even more of a slog takes weight offThink work feels like a treadmill now? Try a new desk designed at the Mayo Clinic. … On average, their overweight volunteers burned 100 calories more every hour while walking slowly — at 1 mile per hour (1,6 km per hour) — than while sitting in a chair. Interesting concept. I wonder if I’d get annoyed to have to constantly walk.

Hannibal Rising

This movie was somewhat disappointing when compared to Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Red Dragon. All of those were a thriller trying to solve a puzzle. This one was just telling a story that was laid out in plain site and just executing with no sense of mystery at all. There was enough gore if that’s what you like.

Official Site
IMDb: User Rating: 6.0/10 (7,639 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: D+ / Yahoo! Users: C+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 15% / Average Rating: 3.9/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Book
MY RATING: 5/10

hannibal rising poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Random Crap

A new free XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade) game is available: Aegis Wing (from MS newsgroup). It’ll only be available free for a limited time, sort of like Texas Hold’em which was free for the 1st week. I downloaded the game last night and gave it a try. It’s a spaceship shooter type game like Gradius or Defender. It’s actually rather hard (even in normal mode). The fun part of it is you can play 4 players in local mode, which would be neat the next time I gather some friends over.

Evolution for cows is occurring rapidly lately:

  • Calf born with 6 legs on Nebraska farmA days-old black Angus calf romps about a central Nebraska farm just like any other — only this one romps with six legs. “He’s a real freak,” said Brian Slocum, who said the calf was born Sunday to one of his cows. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
  • Wis. farmer finds new calf has two noses – Mark Krombholz had to look twice at his new calf, Lucy — one time for each nose. “I didn’t notice anything too different about her until I got her in the barn,” Krombholz said, “and all of a sudden I went to feed her a bottle of milk, and I thought maybe she’d been kicked in the nose and there were two noses there.”

6 legs and 2 noses, what more does a cow need for his next generation!

Woman’s 11-stone legs may be lost (from Digg) – A woman is campaigning to raise awareness of a rare condition which has left her with 11 stone (70kg) legs.

Brazil nixes online ad for sale of wifeThe government has ordered an Internet auction site to remove an advertisement in which a Brazilian man offered to sell his wife for about $50.

Balls of Fury – I saw this trailer a week ago and this movie is awesome! It reminds me of Shaolin Soccer, but in table tennis (or ping pong) and instead of an all Chinese cast, this is mostly American. I believe that part of the trailer actually uses a track from Shaolin Soccer. Hiro Nakamura from Heroes actually makes an appearance!

Brewer must pay alcoholic beer tasterA Brazilian court has ordered local brewer Ambev to pay 100,000 reals (US$49,400; euro36,400) to an alcoholic beer taster who drank about a liter and a half (3.2 pints) of beer each day. The unidentified employee alleged that the company did not provide the health measures needed to keep him from developing alcoholism, a labor court in the Rio Grande do Sul state said in a statement Friday.

Google Search – she invented (from Digg) – Google suggests: Did you mean: he invented

Doctor finds spiders in boy’s earThese guys weren’t exactly Snap, Crackle and Pop. What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy’s ear — “like Rice Krispies” — ended up as an earache, and the doctor’s diagnosis was that a pair of spiders made a home in the ear.

U.S. spouses cheat like the French, but feel worseMen in South Africa say they cheat instead of taking second or third wives, Americans lament that love has died in their marriages, and the Japanese believe ex-marital sex isn’t adultery if they pay for it. Haha!

monty python football (from FuzzyWuzzy) – monty python guys with their crazy ideas. What happens when you pit a bunch of German philosophers against Greek philosophers on the football (soccer) field.

Gran Turismo HD: Real Life Comparison (from Digg) – these image comparisons are amazing! I honestly couldn’t differentiate which ones were real and which ones were fake.

Japanese find sleep and shelter in cyber cafesYet the 26-year-old has been sleeping in a reclining seat in an Internet cafe every night for the past month since he lost his steady office job and his apartment. It’s cheaper than a hotel, offers access to the Internet and hundreds of Manga comic books, and even has a microwave and a shower where he can wash in the morning before heading off to one of his temporary jobs ranging from cleaning to basic office work. We need internet cafes more like that here!!!

VR Defender Y3K (from Artemyst) – Another Defend the Castle type of game where you build towers who purpose is to to stop those little guys from reaching your base. This one’s really done well and even has different levels.

Sumo-Mongolian sumo wrestler banned for car crashThe Japan Sumo Association, which forbids its wrestlers from driving, also fined Kyokutenho for smashing into the back of a car in Tokyo last month. Interesting… I wonder why they don’t let them drive? Too big to fit in a car?

Sentence: Wear a sign that says ‘I AM A THIEF’ (from Consumerist) – Don’t shoplift in Attala, Ala. That’s the message Judge Kenneth Robertson Jr. sent when he ordered two convicted shoplifters to spend eight hours wearing signs that say “I AM A THIEF I STOLE FROM WALMART” while standing outside the store. I love punishment like these.

The Dating Game (from Digg) – I didn’t lose a sofa, I gained a wife. All I wanted to do was sell my sofa. Is this suppose to be a good thing?

the legend of neil – webisode 1 – the beginning (from 1P Start) – the first episode of the second effinfunny original series finds neil trapped inside the legend of zelda video game. tony janning and mike rose star. Who knew that masturbating to the fairy in The Legend of Zelda and asphyxiating oneself would be a portal into the game!

The Luigi Story (from GameDrift) – The real story behind the infamous underdog plumber and everybody’s favorite player two. Best Short Film Winner at the 2006 GenCon Film Festival. This short film goes through the life of Luigi. Mario always gets the main focus. I mean it’s a game about 2 plumber brothers, but the title is always Super Mario Bros. What about Super Luigi Bros. or Super Segali Bros.? The main focus on all the cover art is also Mario and Luigi’s may be hiding in the background somewhere. Luigi’s life is tough and even tried to spin off and record his own album. Then he went into a life crime. Not all is bad. He did score the Princess and had a baby mushroom. Really funny stuff.

Unique USB gadgets (from Digg) – USB is intended to help retire all legacy serial and parallel ports. USB can connect computer peripherals such as mouse devices, keyboards, PDAs, gamepads and joysticks, scanners, digital cameras and printers. For many devices such as scanners and digital cameras, USB has become the standard connection method. Another compilation of funky USB devices.

And the real Lotto winner is … that man at the cash register (from Digg) –

  • January 4, 2005: Winning Lotto ticket worth $574,000 lodged at World Square newsagency. An employee, Chris Ong, substitutes claim form, and sends his claim and ticket to NSW Lotteries.
  • January 12: NSW Lotteries sends Ong a letter congratulating him on his win.
  • January 18: NSW Lotteries transfers money into his account. The following day Ong withdraws $574,000 in cash.
  • January 27: Ong leaves Australia.
  • January 31: The real winners, Mei-Yin Lee and Caroline Day, contact NSW Lotteries inquiring about their prize.

But three weeks later when Dr Lee rang NSW Lotteries to inquire about the money, a “bold” fraud by an employee at the newsagency came to light – and it would be another 27 months before the pair saw their money.

Vienna library launches erotica hotlineThis isn’t the typical whispering you might expect to hear at a library. Vienna’s City Hall has launched a “sex hotline” to raise money for the capital’s main public library, officials said Tuesday. It’s unusual, but it’s not particularly raunchy: Callers pay 39 euro cents (53 cents) a minute to listen to an actress read breathless passages from erotica dating to the Victorian era.

Gas station owner told to raise pricesBut the state
Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection says those deals are too good: They violate Wisconsin’s Unfair Sales Act, which requires stations to sell gas for about 9.2 percent more than the wholesale price.
What the f*ck? Why would the government care if I sold gasoline at lower than whole sale cost? Sigh…

FrontDeskTip.com – Your First Bet should be at Hotel Check-inNot everything at the casino has house edge. Real experience shows that people have a 74.08% success rate of getting a hotel room upgrade by tipping the front desk clerk a $20! Interesting… It all started with this FW thread: LAS VEGAS FRONT DESK TIPPING! and someone decided to spin off a site based on the comments inside. I’m tempted now to slip a $20 bill to the clerk next time I visit a hotel.

The Cornucopia Institute: Wal-Mart Slapped for Misleading Organic ConsumersConsumer fraud investigators in the state of Wisconsin released their findings this week after a three-month long investigation into allegations that Wal-Mart stores throughout the state of Wisconsin had misled consumers by misidentifying conventional food items as organic. In a letter to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., based in Bentonville, Arkansas, the Wisconsin
Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection stated they’d found numerous instances of conventional food products improperly labeled as organic by the retail chain. Specifically, Wisconsin authorities told Wal-Mart’s legal counsel that “use of the term ‘Wal-Mart Organics’ in combination with reference to a specific non-organic product may be considered to be a misrepresentation and therefore a violation” of Wisconsin state statutes.
I wonder what their definition of Wal-Mart organic is…

tsa security (from Consumierist) – This is the SNL (Saturday Night Live) skit on TSA (Transportation Security Administration) security. This is a parody of what the training would be like when the new liquids and gel rule went into effect.

Confirmation: GrandCentral + TMobile = Cheap Incoming Phone Calls?You can get cheap calls on your T-mobile plan by hooking it up with Grand Central, reader Noah’s T-mobile bill confirms. Grand Central is a free service that creates a new phone number that you can link to other phone numbers. When someone calls your Grand Central number, it forwards to the other numbers you have attached. T-Mobile has a “My Fave 5” plan that gives you unlimited nationwide calling to those numbers you put in your Fave 5 network. I’ve mentioned this in the past, but one thing I was never clear on was how the caller id would work. In order for My Fave 5 to work correctly, it has to tell T-Mobile it’s always calling from the same number. Unsunder posted a comment: It lets you know the caller info from your address book through Grandcentral when you answer. It would say call from “Ben”. So you would have to answer to find out who was calling. If they’re not in your address book then they are asked to state their name and the info is stored. So yes you do lose your caller id. Although you get it back in a crippled way.

World of Warcraft VISA Credit Card (from Ungsunghero) – Earn gametime with card purchases / Receive a month of WoW with first use. I was thinking, if I was an MMORPG and was issuing a credit card, I’d be giving out in-game money/currency/gold (costs me nothing) and if they accumulate a certain number of points, they can use it to obtain a rare item, maybe even an item that you can only retrieve by using the card.

A Sweet So Sour: Kool-Aid Dills (from Ungsunghero) – Those pickles were once mere dills. They were once green. Their exteriors remain pebbly, a reminder that long ago they began their lives on a farm, on the ground, as cucumbers. But they now have an arresting color that combines green and garnet, and a bracing sour-sweet taste that they owe to a long marinade in cherry or tropical fruit or strawberry Kool-Aid.