A Nintendo Wii PSA: SD Memory Cards

Categories: games, awesome, tech, psa

What differences do you see between these two products? They are both 1.0 gigabyte Secure Digital memory cards. Despite what the picture suggests, they are in fact the same size in real life. But those two words and the classic Nintendo color scheme of the card on the left make it retail for $59.99. The card on the right normally sells for about $34.99 and if you are at all diligent you can find it in-store and on the internet selling for about $17.99. The Wii will read both without any problem, but the one on the left is more profitable. When they designed the memory system for the Wii they wanted people to be able to share photos and email from the Wii console, but in order to do that they needed a way to transfer photos, so they decided to use a standardized memory format that is popular in digital photography. They chose SD memory, and the result is that you can get memory cards a lot cheaper than on any other gaming system. The Wii itself comes with 512MB of internal memory, so buying a 1GB SD card would double your memory. Nintendo formats everything in terms of "blocks", and I can't seem to find a conversion chart. On the Gamecube, 59 blocks was about half a MB of data, and in what I have saved to my Wii so far I think I have used about 100 blocks. So there is plenty to spare.

So please if you're buying this for a child or nephew or even for yourself make sure you shop smart. Also worth keeping in mind is that in all likelihood your Wii is not your primary tool for accessing the internet or your digital camera. Primarily what you need is a card that will let you transfer photos/data from camera to Wii or Wii to Wii (if a friend has one). Anything you aren't actively in need of using can be offloaded onto the hard drive of your home computer or your Wii and transfered back and forth as needed. I bought a 256 MB SD card on clearance for $10 the other day for just those reasons. It wasn't the best value, but the 1GB cards were all sold out and I don't know anyone (in real life) with a Wii right now anyways.

Oh, and the maximum size SD card the Wii will recognize is 2GB. The more you know.

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A Soccer FYI

Categories: news, awesome

I just wanted to let you know that a good friend of mine, that I coached in club soccer for the last five years has finally made a decision about college. Matt Cebula, who attends East Kentwood High School has accepted a scholarship to play soccer at Michigan State. Here's a scanned photo of the article, but if you want to actually be able to read it here's the link. The article focuses on his high school career which is understandable because its in a local paper, but it misses out on some rather amazing accomplishments he's had. Since he turned 13, he's been to Europe twice (Italy and Belgium) for tournaments with the US Soccer Olympic Development Program (ODP). He also took one trip with ODP to South America (Argentina) for another international tournament. He has also attended invitation only tryouts for the youth national team on multiple occassions and just this past summer Matt was invited to participate in the Adidas ESP camp, which is a week long, invitation only event for the 150 best 16-18 year old soccer players in the nation. Anyways I just wanted to say congratulations Matt, since I don't get the local newspaper and only saw this after his sister emailed me this scan of the cutout article.

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Danny DeVito On The View

Categories: humor, television, weird, film

I suppose this is one way to handle the chicken squawk of the women on The View. Just get drunk all night and don't sleep. Then while you're at it ignore the questions they ask and talk junk about the President. "I was out with George...Whhhoaaaahhhhhh!!"

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The People's Court

Categories: weird, humor, television, law

I don't even know what to make of this. It's real, there's no doubt about that. But for some reason Peter, I am reminded of your friend Nick from Butler. I think it might be because of that one Halloween where we all wore totally ridiculous costumes. There is just something a little off about this People's Court participant, though its nice to see he doesn't take himself too seriously.

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zOMG! L33+ 5p4K

Categories: tech, humor, news, video

Don't worry, you'll be able to read that complicated title written in a secret teenage code language after you watch this eye opening news report. If you pause it at just the right time you'll see this complex, indecipherable teenage language in action via an "instant messaging" program:

"H3Y, MY P4R3N+5 4RE OU+ OF +OWN +HIS W33K3ND"

I think what we all need to do now is try to catch one of these teenagers using 'leet speak' and crack them, like we did with the German U-boats back in WWII. Otherwise who knows what they could be planning while their "parents are out of town this weekend".

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A Wii Bit Of Advice

Categories: humor, tech, stupid, psa

If you are going to come over to play Nintendo Wii (I would say my Wii, but well...) , here are some fine instructional videos and photos from WiiHaveAProblem and YouTube:I know you can get into some of the Wii Sports games, but you really don't have to swing that hard. Bad things can happen.I don't know how this one happened, but I know it was still the user's fault. Wii Tennis.

Wii Bowling went all "Tina Fey" on the face of this big screen TV. You know, still attractive but you always sort of wonder what the deal is with that scar.Wii Bowling 1, Low Hanging Ceiling Fans 0.An HDTV bites the dust. Wii Sports (sport unknown).

And finally, the more adorable side of the Nintendo Wii. Looks like our little friend needs to improve her putting. Make sure you have adequate volume on this one.

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A Little Holiday Help

Categories: tech, me

On the left is the Nintendo Nunchuck. On the is Wii Remote (or Wiimote). Both of these things are near impossible to find. I looked at about six stores Friday, one Saturday and then Best Buy on Sunday when I actually got the Wii console. Anyhow I figure the more eyes the better, so if you're out Christmas shopping and you are in a place that you think might carry them, could you do me a favor and look? I just figure the more eyes the better, and since I don't often have a reason to go to places like Mejier, Target or Walmart, which limits my chances of finding either one by chance. The Nunchuck retails for $20 and the Wiimote sells for $40. If you see one, I would appreciate it if you would give me a call and let me know. I don't think this will last too much longer. A week or two maybe, but you just never know, and since people seem to do their Christmas shopping according to their own schedules I figure you all might be able to help. If you know my number, this message is for you. If you don't, then we probably don't live in the same city. Thanks anyways. It is the thought that counts.

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H2: It Only Looks Tough

Categories: weird, news, psa

And if you don't believe it, check out this photo from the Indianapolis Star.

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My Great Wiikend

Categories: news, games, tech, awesome

After Thanksgiving, I spent half of Friday dropping in and checking for Nintendo Wiis at most of the local retailers. I had zero success, mostly because I wrongly assumed that the popularity of it would begin through word of mouth. Saturday I mostly sat around the house pining over the Wii and wondering if I should waste another half a day searching for one. So while I was debating I decided to check Kotaku, because they regularly post information concerning console shipments and sales plans for stores like Best Buy. Kotaku mentioned that an Oklahoma City Best Buy was receiving a shipment that would be held until Sunday morning, so that they could meet the minimum in-store requirements from the ad in the Sunday paper. So I stopped in and asked a salesperson, who confirmed that my best chance and scoring a Wii would be Sunday morning. So I set my alarm clock for 6am, and got to Best Buy around 6:45am. I was both shocked and relieved to find that I would be the 17th person in line. Evidently nobody showed up before 4am, the first group of about 8 arrived around 5am and the next 8 arrived between 5am and 6am. I got a seat next a guy in college and his brother. They had a laptop with them and were surfing the internet off of Best Buy's unsecured wireless network. So we talked systems and accessories and game reviews and general nerdery. It was actually pretty fun, mostly because it was about 50 degrees and not windy. As we were doing all this, more people started to show up and at 9am a Best Buy employee came outside and gave each of us apurchase voucher that reserved a Nintendo Wii for up to one hour after the store opened. We all thought we'd be in the store at 9:01am, but the store didn't open until 10. So I drove home, paced around the house and checked my e-mail, all in a futile attempt to waste time until Best Buy opened and I could get a Wii. Finally I returned around 9:40am, found my new friends and I stood in disbelief as our formerly pretty cozy line of 43 had grown to somewhere around 80 or 90 people, almost all of whom had no idea about the purchase vouchers and I think were planning on some type of Jingle All The Way mad dash for a stack of Turbo Man dolls. So we all got let in at once and immediately they formed a voucher line and a non-voucher line, where they told the latecomers that they weren't guaranteed a console, they would just have to wait and see, when in fact there were only 52 Wiis in the store and at least 42 of them were spoken for. I don't know how many of the non-voucher people went home empty handed, but probably most of them. I know my friend's brother sold his voucher for $20, which is actually better than it sounds because I am pretty sure he sold it to guy that showed up well after 9am and wouldn't have had a shot to get one otherwise. Meanwhile in the voucher line they herded us together and one by one we got a personal Best Buy shopper that provided us with additional information on the accessories and warranties that they actually make money on.

Excellent, it was my chance to flex knowledge gained from about six weeks of rumors, launch news and general gaming news floating around the internet. I got Alex, and he immediately took the "Hey Bro whats up?" approach like he didn't want to do his song and dance anymore than I wanted to hear it, and then he said "so would you like to buy our $40 replacement plan? You know some of these consoles have been having problems accessing the internet." and then I lowered the boom. I said "Yeah, well that was because the first firmware upgrade had some bad code that messed things up for about 1% of the Wii owners, but the second firmware update allegedly fixed it. So I won't be doing either until a third update is available." I could see the deflated look on his face as I ate his lunch and had relations with his girlfriend right in front of about 75 interested onlookers who couldn't hear a word either of us said. Truthfully the replacement plan isn't a bad idea, but right now its pointless when Best Buy sells out within 8 seconds of the store opening every Sunday. Even if I had a problem today, they couldn't replace it at the store or any sooner than Nintendo could. It's going to be months before they will be able to and the time-value of my $40 is basically another game I could purchase and play. Also, I have 30 days to change my mind, which I will probably do. Just in case.

I met another guy in the checkout line, who was buying Gears of War and Xbox360 for his kids. We talked a little about the Wii and the 360 and how much he wanted one for his youngest child, so I gave him some sage advice on how to get one and then I noticed in the parking lot that he was walking somewhere across the mall. So I offered him a ride because I was in a good mood and between the two of us, he had more to lose than I did if he tried anything. Strangely I only gave him a ride to Chuck E. Cheese, where he said his wife had agreed to pick him up. From what I could surmise, she was doing some shopping of her own, probably at Old Navy.

So finally at almost 11am I got home, cleaned my room and then hooked up my Wii downstairs on the main TV. Dan and I played Wii Sports and Madden '07 for about three hours before he left for the library, and then I moved it upstairs to my room because I knew that I would be playing for about another 4 by myself. Finally around 8:30pm I downloaded the firmware updates I so thoroughly chastised the Best Buy employee for mentioning, had no problems and then went to make some dinner. I watched about an hour of Sunday night football and then played one more hour on the Wii until I went to sleep at 11pm. It was a long, rewarding day.

I'll tell you right now, that you wouldn't believe how awesome the controls are if I told you. If you like Madden, you should enjoy relearning it. For some odd reason it is really satisfying to frantically waive your arm in the air to signal a fair catch. Wii Sports could be better, but I think it is supposed to be more of a demo disc for what to expect in the future from Nintendo and from third party game developers.

Bottom line, I couldn't be happier about this. On top of all that, I haven't even opened The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess yet, and that is supposed to be the best game out right now.

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Arrested Development Is Back!!

Categories: humor, television, awesome

Arrested Development is back, though not in the way we all wish. MSN.com is making every episode of Arrested Development available for on-demand streaming over the next 12 months. The first five episodes of season one are available now. Each episode is broken into three chunks (2 mins, 7 mins, 12 mins) each separated by a 30 second commercial break. Hopefully tomorrow, when everyone is leaving early and you decided to mentally start the weekend early, this will occupy your time and make you appear busy. I love this show.

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The Michael Richards Debacle

Categories: television, weird, news
The Tirade:

This is was captured on somebody's camera phone at a comedy club in Los Angeles over the weekend. Last night Michael Richards went on David Letterman to apologize for his tirade via satellite while Jerry Seinfeld was on promoting something. I don't know if it made it worse, but it definitely didn't make it better. I find that clip delightfully awkward. This first one though is terrible, which is why I elected to go with the + Seinfeld intro music version. It helps.
The Apology:
Like they were saying on the radio, Jerry's tone of voice is pretty much a constant, which is why the crowd keeps laughing. Its the exact same Jerry you would hear on the show, only he tells them to "Stop laughing, it's not funny". This is all made even more surreal when you think about the Seinfeld episode where Jerry has to deal with a heckler and if I remember correctly, hires Kramer to heckle/over-laugh at Banya's jokes. I am sorry if this makes your skin crawl like mine.

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My Thoughts On Casino Royale

Categories: film, opinion, awesome

I saw Casino Royale Saturday night around 10:30. The theater was packed and there were four idiots in front of me that decided to talk at a normal volume throughout the movie. I don't think I'll ever learn my lesson about going to the Woodland Cinemark. I guess this time I figured by 10:30pm all the morons would have found something better to do than attend a movie.

I just now realized that the internet has robbed me (us) of the joy of the previews at the theater. I was sitting there ready to be amazed, and all I got was some Rocky 6, The Pursuit Of Happyness and a Spider-Man 3 trailer I posted here. I think there were some others, but those were the only ones that really stood out. In fact there is a newer Spider-Man 3 trailer on the internet that basically shows the what is presumably the end of the movie, when (this next part will be in white, spoiler alert!) Spider-Man uses the church bell tower to rid himself of the symbiote. Meanwhile Eddie Brock is in the sanctuary of the church, praying for something, with his well developed hatred/jealousy of Spider-Man/Peter Parker. The bells separate the two the and Spider-Man leaves. Eddie Brock here the noise and goes to check out the commotion, when the symbiote falls on him, bonds with him over their mutual hate for Spider-Man and Venom is born. So that was alright, but not spectacular.

As far as the movie goes I thought it was really well done. The story was interesting and really different from all the other Bond movies. I think it belongs around the 5-10 range of the Best Bond movies ever. Last week Entertainment Weekly ranked the Bond movies, here is the list starting from #10, just to see where it ranks. At the very least it is as good, if not slightly better than Goldeneye, the best of Brosnan's Bond films. I don't want to ruin it for anyone that plans to see this in theaters or on DVD, but I have this advice: Remember the storyline for this movie, it's his first mission as a Double-O, so there are instances where I was thinking Bond should have known better, but in reality he's a greenhorn.

So to summarize, the film was well worth the price of admission, Cinemark at Woodland sucks and Daniel Craig far closer to Pierce Brosnan than Timothy Dalton.

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Yeah, Sure It Is

Categories: humor, weird

Ummm, what? This is allegedly the Dora The Explorer Aquapet from Wild Planet Toys. If Dora isn't really your style, there are many to choose from, including: Spongebob and Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants.

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Let's Have Ourselves A Knife Fight

Categories: video, humor, news

It appears that there are two Highlanders in Florida. Imagine this thief's surprise. The clip is ultimately a little disappointing, since nobody was dismembered or seriously maimed, but still it's not everyday you get to see something like this happen. If I had more skillz, I would totally pipe some Kill Bill music into the background. Check out the whole story at The Smoking Gun.

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The Nintendo Wii Ads

Categories: games, awesome, video
I can't tell you how excited I am to pick up a Nintendo Wii (pronounced We). I may eventually get an Xbox 360 or a PS3, but it's good to know that somebody is focusing on making gaming unique and fun, and not just on making sure the blades of grass are rendered in high definition, and that each blade has its own physics algorithm so it can move independently of all the other blades of grass you'll never be zoomed in on. Three videos here, the top one is Red Steel.
This one is a general Wii Sports ad.
This one is for "The Maestro" in you.
And this one is the creative genius behind many of the original Nintendo games, and the current Director and General Manager of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (EAD), the corporate sector of Nintendo of Japan. He's just working out some tennis strokes in front of a live audience at E3 last May.

The Nintendo Wii comes out this Sunday, November 19th and retails at $249 and will have 27 games available on launch day ($49.99 each). In case you are wondering about PS3, that comes out this Friday, November 17th. The PS3 will sell for either $499 or $599 depending on which hard drive you get (20GB or 60GB), and will have 17 titles available at launch for $59.99 each. Also worth noting is that Sony has estimated only 200,000-250,000 PS3 available in the entire United States on Friday, meaning that if you're actually reading this right now and are not camping outside of Best Buy, you are probably SOL. By year's end Sony is hoping for about 1 million units for sale in the United States, not far from what happened last year with the Xbox 360. Nintendo expects roughly 1 million Wii consoles available on launch day and with a total of 4 million shipped to the US by the end of the year.

This is an oversimplification, because the two pieces of hardware are not on even ground (the PS3 is far more powerful and cutting edge). But basically what it comes down to is that with your hard earned $600, you can either grab your camping gear today, get to a Circuit City and hope to be one of five lucky customers Friday morning that can buy a PS3 with one controller and no games (if you're even that lucky). Or, you can go have a leisurely weekend, wake up Sunday morning, watch some football, head over to Best Buy grab, a Nintendo Wii, an extra controller and 6 games .

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OJ Simpson On Fox

Categories: law, news, weird, television

Curse my morbid curiosity. OJ Simpson is now just taunting everyone in America. First it was the "search for the real killer" but now that more than a decade has passed without any results, OJ has probably grown tired of spending all that time and money. So now he is going for a new approach, with the help of Fox television. At then of this month OJ is releasing a knew book called If I Did It, which will be a hypothetical description of how he would have committed the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman if he were the murderer. In an effort to publicize the book, Fox will air two part interview called OJ Simpson: If I Did It Here's How It Happened, which will presumably be a discussion of the contents of the book.

Karen, if your offer still stands I might have to call you on that favor, since the book's publisher is HarperCollins, a division of News Corp. I know its not exactly The Bible Experience like you mentioned, but this may be one of the rare topics that bring out the worst tabloid fascination in me.

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Urban Sprinting

Categories: humor, youtube, television

Pretty entertaining. I am not sure what exactly the legal ramifications of doing this might be. Given the litigious nature of the United States, all it would probably take would be one security guard or innocent bystander to break a finger and your ass would be in a sling.

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Shepard Smith's Freudian Slip

Categories: news, youtube, humor

These Fox News anchors are just dirty, dirty people. Conservatives my ass. This is why Shepard Smith was laughing so hard last week at Jane Skinner's "Top Cock" faux pas. I'll trust you to make the appropriate decision about when and where you can watch this. It aired on TV, so that makes it SFW in my opinion, but then again it probably isn't safe if you work at Christian school building.

Oh and speaking of sex in the news, if you're ever going to demonstrate how to download music for your local news station, make sure you've at least done some superficial cleansing of your download history before you let the camera zoom in (press pause at 0:59 or 1 min for a borderline SFW surpise).

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Fire (works) Fight!!

I'm sad to say this, but this actually looks kind of fun. Scary, but fun.

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A Bull In A China Shop

Categories: video, humor, law

I am not sure much how much this thief could have gotten away with if he had managed to unlock the door once he was inside, but I think the owner of this liquor store might want to consider either upgrading or downgrading his security system. This middle ground seems to cause as many problems as it solves.

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Fantasy Congress

Categories: politics, games, awesome

I am not certain I have reached this level of desperation just yet. Fantasy Congress is now in session. Three students from Claremont McKenna College in northern California adapted the idea of fantasy sports to members of the HoR and the Senate. So here is how it works:

Your team will draft 16 members of Congress in the following structure:

• 2 senior Senators - "Upper Senators"
• 2 junior Senators - "Lower Senators"
• 4 senior Representatives - "All-Stars"
• 4 mid-range experience Representatives - "Supporting Lineup"
• 4 junior Representatives - "Rookies"

Step 1 - Introduction (5pts):
In the Senate, someone has to introduce a piece of legislation. Your Member of Congress (MC) (one out of 100 U.S. Senators) has taken the first step in the legislative process from the Senate. This piece of legislation is introduced and automatically referred to a relevant committee, your MC will have to battle it out with committee members to get to the next stage.

Step 2 - Congressional Subcommittees (15 pts):
Your MC will have to get members to move this piece of legislation out of committee. The chair of the committee may hold hearings, markup the legislation, or not do anything (effectively eliminating its prospects of success). In the Senate, things move slower (although there are fewer Senators), so this is a crucial step for Senators. If successful, your MC has cleared the first hurdle and has his/her legislation is given to the rest of the Chamber for discussion and vote.

Step 3 - The Senate Amendment Process (5pts or 20 pts):
On the floor of the House and Senate, your Member of Congress may use the amendment process to either refine legislation or to add their own legislation to highly successful bills. From what I understand, it is 5 pts if they add their own legislation to a bill, and 20pts if that amendment is adopted. Who knew pork barreling could be so much fun?

Step 4 - Vote on the Senate floor (25pts or 15 pts):
Your MC must use his/her skills to lobby, logroll, and get the votes necessary to win the vote on the Senate floor. In the Senate, a requirement of 60 votes is usually necessary to send forward legislation, so the high bar set for Senators requires choosing an MC that can really do well. If successful, this piece of legislation (or a similar version) will be introduced in the House. 25pts if the legislation passes in the Senate, 15pts if it fails.

Step 5 - Introduction into The House or Representatives (5 pts):
In the House, someone has to introduce a piece of legislation. Your MC (one out of 435 U.S. Representatives) has taken the first step in the legislative process from the House. This piece of legislation is introduced and automatically referred to a relevant committee, your MC will have to battle it out with committee members to get to the next stage.

Step 6 - The House Referral Out Of Committee (15pts):
Your MC will have to get members to move this piece of legislation out of committee. The chair of the committee may hold hearings, markup the legislation, or not do anything (effectively eliminating its prospects of success). If successful, your MC has cleared the first hurdle and has his/her legislation given to the rest of the Chamber.

Step 7 - The House Rules Committee (10pts):
In the House, legislation must be placed on the calendar and given a rule by the Rules Committee. Thus, your MC has to get past the powerful Rules Committee to get legislation on the floor of the House for debate, discussion, and a vote. If it has been placed on the Calendar, the legislation has passed through the Rules Committee and will be sent to a vote.

Step 8 - Amendments In The House (5pts or 20 pts):
On the floor of the House and Senate, your Member of Congress may use the amendment process to either refine legislation or to add their own legislation to highly successful bills. 5pts for the amendment proposal, 20pts for adoption.

Step 9 - The House Vote (25pts or 15 pts):
Your MC must use his/her skills to lobby, logroll, and get the votes necessary to win the vote on the House floor. The House is a difficult body because it favors the majority heavily, so minority members will have a tough time getting a successful vote on legislation. Nevertheless, if successful, this piece of legislation (or a similar version) will be introduced in the Senate. 25pts for Yes, 15 pts for No.

Step 10 - Congressional Conference (30pts):
Perhaps one of the most difficult, but most important areas of legislative action. The gladiators of the House will meet with the barbarians of the Senate (or the other way around, depending on who you talk with) to come up with a compromise version of legislation. Long nights, force of will, staring contests, and reams of paper will determine the outcome of who wins and loses. Most of the time, either they both lose, or they both win.

Step 11 - Conference Report Approval (20pts or 5pts):
Once a CONFERENCE REPORT (compromise legislation) emerges from the rubble, the legislation must be approved by both the House and the Senate. If that occurs, then the legislation will be sent to the President. 20pts for a Yes in both chambers, 5pts for No in both.

Step 12: The President (50 pts):
The President will either sign or veto the proposed legislation. Your MC is probably so tired that he/she cannot even think straight, but this is the true test of Fantasy Congress, passing through all of these steps and creating the laws of the land. These laws affect everyone: the rich, the poor, and even the Citizens of Fantasy Congress.

And in case you fell asleep reading that, here is an explanation (sans point values) from School House Rock:

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My Christmas List

Categories: tech, awesome, music

My Christmas list just got a whole lot shorter. This is the iCarta iPod stereo/toilet paper dispenser from ATech Flash Technology. It features four moisture resistant speakers, plus a docking port for your iPod. Now you can use the bathroom in style. So the question of the day is what kind of music you should listen to while using the bathroom. Instrumentals? Rock? Hip Hop? Nature sounds? I already have my answer. "Hearts On Fire" by John Cafferty played in the final training montage of Rocky IV. If that doesn't inspire you to take the best dump you've got inside you, then nothing will. Here is the montage itself, I encourage you to press play and then minimize your browser window so you are only listening to the audio. A perfect match right? Plus it would be awesome to shout Draaggooooo! After you flush the toilet and wash your hands. At this time there are no details on pricing or availability. But I would be willing to let some pay up to $100 to get this for me for Christmas.
Remember, press play, then minimize your browser and listen to the audio.

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I've Never Seen Such Bad Judgement

Categories: weird, video

The person responsible for uploading this video graciously took some time to bleep the profanity in the clip. But there are still some scantily clad (bikini tops, bras and boy shorts) in this video, so take the proper level of caution about where you watch this. It is basically two minutes of people getting tazered and throwing ninja stars at each other. I can't wait until someone puts together an article detailing how YouTube and the prospect of internet fame destroyed an entire generation of children.

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Aries Spears

Categories: television, humor, music

Screw all these scientific studies telling us "teens that drink alcohol are also more sexually active" or any of the other obvious conclusions scientists reach after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. What we should be finding an answer to is how some people can do flawless imitations of celebrities. Do they have extra vocal chords? I don't think they can hear any better than you or I can, they just seem to be able to do things with their voice box that most people can't. It's easy to find a friend that might be able to do one impression, but it is usually because they have a similar voice pitch and then use it to imitate catch phrases. This on the other hand is just plain ridiculous. Aries Spears (from Mad TV) doing an on the fly freestyle in the voices of LL Cool J, Snoop Dogg, DMX and Jay-Z.

Thanks Lout and Booj for sending me the link.

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A Disastrous Day At Work

Categories: weird, humor, video

Warning, this is not safe for lunch. Either stop eating or come back to this one later. Oh and volume is not necessary, because the guy yells a profanity. If you don't see anything in the space above, just click in the middle and the video should appear.

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NASA: Dumbest. Problem. Ever.

Categories: science, tech, news, stupid

The latest news from NASA's shuttle launch programs is something you will not believe. Shuttles have routinely been grounded for weather and safety concerns such as the foam debris that was determined to be the cause of the Columbia explosion more than two years ago. This time around it is all about the computers, but not like you might imagine. NASA has never had a shuttle in orbit during the Dec. 31 to Jan. 1 New Year's transition. There is a launch scheduled for next month that was originally slated to return to earth in the first week of January. But now those plans are being altered because NASA scientists are not certain how the on-board computers will react when the date rolls over and the day becomes Jan. 1, 2007. You have got to be kidding me. And people wonder why conspiracy theorists have doubts about whether or not we landed on the moon. How many billions of dollars are spent on these missions? Not only that but didn't our president make some claim about working towards a manned mission to Mars? How is it that we can fly a space shuttle on top of airplane, but there is concern as to how the space shuttle will react if the date changes from 2006 to 2007. I am baffled.

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Spider-Man 3

Categories: film, awesome, video

Wow. Just wow.

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So Long, Justin

Categories: television, ads, awesome, news
Before I even start, I want you to reread that headline. It is very clever. My least favorite technology ad is about to get a makeover. The Apple Ads attempting to answer the Mac/PC
debate will soon feature only John Hodgman, the likeable PC. Like the Mac computer, the public took a look at Justin Long considered his message and decided he was a little too smug for their taste. This leaves only a likeable personification of a PC left to sell Mac computers. We may be looking at a new definition for the word irony. A while back there was a Slate article that summarized the problems Apple faced with the ads, and gives some insight as to the reasons they used to make their decision. I couldn't be happier.

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The Lost Mini-Season Finale

Categories: television

That was it? That is the big cliffhanger that is supposed to tantalize us until February? That episode was weak. I am glad Sawyer told Kate about the two islands, and I am sure that this whole "do Kate and Sawyer love each other?" saga will eventually have some point, but the entire part about Jack's shock or jealousy about them rang a little hollow. Jack and Kate haven't had any chemistry in about 20 episodes. If I remember correctly the last time it even came up was sometime near the beginning of season two. Nikki and Paolo, the two noobs, make me angry every time they are on screen. Is it me or are the flashbacks providing less and less relevant information. I think we have the gist of what happened with Kate. It's great to know she was married and in love, and people thought her name was Monica, but it didn't hint at, much less shed any light on anything important. I think the same goes with Jack and Sawyer. The next few episodes ought to finish filling out the Locke, Sayid and Hurley stories. Those seem to have the most interesting mysteries left to uncover. There were a few others that would have been equally interesting, but those characters all got killed.
In case you were wondering about this scene, "lift up your eyes and look north" is actually a rough quote from Genesis 13:14:

The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, "Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west.

John 3:5 also has some relevance to the events from last week:

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit".

So that's something to think about as well. I think they would have been better off keeping Eko alive until the main chunk of this season at least. There is no need to piss off your core audience right before you take a 3 month break. The other thing I just now remembered was that right after Sayid asked about the smoke monster and whether or not they were actually going to get shovels, Locke said "we're still headed back to camp, just taking a little detour". Initially I thought they meant there was something Locke needed to do before they buried Mr. Eko but now it seems like he wanted to avoid walking through a specific part of the jungle.In case you are little slow like I am, this is Alex. She is about 16 years old, and since Danielle Rousseau asked "Where is Alex?" when she captured Sayid, we can assume that she is Rousseau's kidnapped daughter. They may have pointed this out, but somehow I didn't really think about it until last night.

Oh and Sayid's refusal/reluctance to discuss the failed rescue attempt, the search party and the fact that Sun shot someone in the stomach while they stole their best hope for getting off the island is absolutely ridiculous.

Any way you slice this episode, it made a promise and didn't deliver. And if you want to hear it from the horse's mouth, TV Guide has yet another interview with Lost guys where they make vague promises, while admitting that they regularly react to viewer demands and appear to be routinely outsmarted by fans of the show.

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K-Fed and Britney's Divorce

Categories: music, news

Not much more to say here other than she filed papers Monday in Los Angeles, and then made appearance on David Letterman looking noticeably more in shape than she has been in a while. Allegedly the new body is courtesy of surgery, but I haven't looked for or seen a decent timeline of photos that would make me believe one way or the other. Anyhow, the pox that is reality television actually did us all a favor this time, as a camera crew following K-Fed around for his reality show Exposed, believes they have recorded the exact moment he got a text message saying "you're divorced" or whatever such a thing might say. Talk about being kicked in the teeth. On top of that the reports are that his pre-nuptial agreement gives him $350,000 + half a Los Angeles mansion (valued at $7 million), and $30,000 per month in alimony for a period equal to half the time they were married (2 years) that comes out to about $360,000. So he is sitting on $3.86 million, a better career than what he had coming in and a claim to fame that at least half the heterosexual men in this country would like to make. Not bad. It sort of makes me wonder what that bald guy that married J-Lo got.

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HBO's Hacking Democracy

Categories: news, television, psa

I am beginning to think that HBO might be something more than just an outlet for The Soprano's, naked ladies and films that performed slightly above average at the box office. First it was Spike Lee's When The Levees Broke and now Hacking Democracy. Throw in Real Sports and Inside The NFL, and HBO is like televisions version of Playboy. If you have 9 free minutes, check this out. It's not about Democrats or Republicans or election fixing allegations, its about the flaws in our ballot counting systems and the refusal by Diebold to address these potentially massive security problems.

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Sacha Baren Cohen On TDS

Categories: humor, television, film