United States trivia

If a person from Nebraska is a Nebraskan, a person from Maine is a Mainer, and a person from Hawaii is a Hawaiian, what do you call a person from Connecticut? Massachusetts?

View the answers in the comments..............

Blast from the past - family jokes

Every family has its traditions. Darlene's is rooted in telling tall tales. A gem dug up from the archives.

Stopping to enjoy the view....

I don't know what it is.... the fact that I'm getting older, or just a newfound appreciation for the simple things in life. But I really enjoy things I used to take for granted in my youth. A gentle breeze. The awesome grace of the mountains. Watching clouds cross the sky. The sound of leaves bristling in the wind. Displays of thunder and lightning. The colours at sunrise and sunset. And the one I'm really looking forward to come September....... the sound of the surf.

Do as I say, not as I do....

I was sitting in my car today, waiting for Darlene to come out of a store. I watched as this guy walks to a car belonging to a driving school, gets in (talking on a cell phone), starts the car and proceeds to drive away (still talking on the cell phone). His critical mistake? He never put his seat belt on. This guy is teaching others how to drive safely.............. He's setting a very bad example.

Legal history

Remember the woman who sued McDonald's because she was burned by hot coffee? I seem to recall a lot of people spouting off at the mouth about how ridiculous that litigation was. Well, before you render your opinion on the case, here are some facts about it.

By the way, I think I know why they serve their coffee so hot. Having bought some lately, and almost scalding the inside of my mouth, I let it cool. Unfortunately, I let it cool too much and the next gulp clued me in to why they need to serve it so hot. Because their coffee sucks.

P.S.: Don't do a Google search on hot coffee with safe search turned off....................

This is a bad prank waiting to happen

At this site, you can choose from 6 different e-cards and send them off to people you had sex with to warn them that they might have contracted an STD......... There's even a space to put your own message and you can remain anonymous if you want. Am I the only one who sees a potential for abuse here?

Busted

Remember the post where I linked to a stripper - magician act? Well, I was asked to take it down by the people who own the show. It's too bad....... although they indicated that the material found in my post was copyrighted material, they weren't very specific. So I'm really not sure what the exact problem was, the mention of the show, the link to the video clip (most likely), or the freeze-frame pic of said clip. But - oh well......... now it's gone.

God bless copyright.............

English people in Japan

I have always been fascinated by Japan. I know a few people who have lived there for varying periods of time and I always revel in their stories. So it was with great bogs of giddyness that I stumbled across this site and it's sequel.

Choice

If you're like the average person, if I asked you what choices you had in the realm of anti-virus software, you'd likely only be able to name 2, maybe 3 titles - McAfee and Norton (Symantec) probably being amongst them.

Well, I saw a really cool thing in Microsoft's latest security newsletter. They opened the playing field by listing a lot of other anti-virus players in the industry. I haven't had a chance to check yet, but I'll bet you a few of them offer a free version................ and that's a good thing. The list even opened my eyes, as I had only ever heard of (besides the 2 previously mentioned) Grisoft's AVG; Panda; CA's eTrust; F-Secure; Kaspersky; Sophos; Alwil's Avast! and Trend Micro's PC-cillin.

P.S.: the picture indicates my anti-virus of choice............... OH!......... and it has a free version......

Man, I'd like to fly one of those...........

If you're into aviation videos, then this site should keep you busy for a little while. I haven't seen them all (I'm still in the Airliner section), but there's some doozers in there. I especially liked the "737 Farewell Flyby", as it was filmed right here in Calgary, when West Jet retired the last of its 737-200 series aircraft.

It's possibly liquid explosives....... stupid!

I'm still shaking my head over this one.

"So CNN is reporting: "Because the plot involved taking liquid explosives aboard planes in carry-ons, passengers at all U.S. and British airports, and those boarding U.S.-bound flights at other international airports, are banned from taking any liquids onto planes."

And then they have the photo of the TSA guy dumping a tub of confiscated possibly explosive liquids into a garbage can in a crowd of people."

Thanks to boingboing.

You have to leave the room to change your mind...

Now this is a small house. Well, maybe not so much small - but thin.

More pics if you follow the link.

Better to eat the fruit....

They say it's a good idea to eliminate soft drinks from your diet. But what should you replace it with? If you said fruit juice, you'd be very wrong. Some doctors are trying to get the word out that fruit juice contains a lot of sugars that can be just as bad or worse than soft drinks. Excerpt:

"People incorrectly think juice is natural and healthy simply because it's extracted from fruit. But there's nothing natural about extracting juice from fruit," says Lustig. "It's the fruit in its entirety that's good for you. The human body needs the fiber, which is what holds the fruit together. The fiber is the good part of the fruit and the juice is the bad part of the fruit. The juice is nature's way of getting you to eat your fiber."

"Will Sir William of Gate be at the interviews?"

If you're a fan of the original British series The Office, you'll probably like Office Values, produced for Microsoft.

View the links at iFilm carefully, there's two parts.

It makes no sense

I teach computer related courses on the side, including troubleshooting, internet security, eBay and others. It was this work that got me introduced to a family, whose 16 year old wants to learn more about computers. They tried to enroll their kid in an evening course at various institutions, but were shocked to discover that none would accept, as their programs only take people 18 and older.

This boggles my mind. A kid wants to formally learn about computers, but regular school doesn't offer anything - and other schools don't want to help.

Update: One institution (which shall remain nameless so as not to jeopardize the good news) was willing to compromise their regulations and allow this youth to enroll in a part-time A+ program. Yay!

Now that's funny

Fun video

I always get a kick out of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, especially their videos. Go check out their video for Tell Me Baby, where they goof around with a bunch of wannabe musicians audition style. By the end, the wannabes are acting up as well as the Chili Peppers do.

How sometimes - the law works against you

On the topic of entertainment industry legal tactics against alleged file sharers, if you ever wanted to know how they succeed in terrorizing (in many cases innocent) consumers into paying settlements without ever setting foot into a court room - this article makes great reading. I'm no lawyer, but I'm willing to bet that if you presented this article to a lawyer to help defend against such a 'claim' by the industry, you'd be well on your way toward victory.

We need a power shift

With all the talk about the upcoming hydrogen economy, a picture is being painted that's so rosy, all our environmental problems will apparently be solved. But the truth is that while running hydrogen fuel cell cars will emit nothing but water vapour out the exhaust, something's got to be making all that hydrogen. The same is true about all-electric vehicles. You just plug your car in. Sure - but where's all that extra electricity going to come from? For now, that something is fossil fuels. So all we're really planning to do is move the emissions from our tailpipes to bigger and more numerous power plants. And what do you think that will do to the price of electricity?

Before we are ready as an economy to move into the hydrogen or all-electric age, we need a fundamental shift in the balance of power. Literally. Right now, you can only buy your power from the utility company. Which is wasteful, because they spend just as much getting the electricity from the source to your house. The key is in local production. Local windmills, solar and natural gas mini-plants at the neighbourhood level. You form little power co-ops and any power left over - you sell back to the grid. Right now the utility companies control the supply vs. demand equation. Prices will never drop because they are smart not to let supply outpace demand. The same can be said for gasoline. But once we have the ability to produce our own power, we have much more influence on the market. Just think how much cheaper filling up your electric car would be if you were getting the juice from mother nature...........

Star Trek Truisms

Are you really surprised?

Big media would have you believe that unlike blogs or other independent sources, they can at least be trusted to be objective, professional and truthful. Well, my friends, that bullshit bubble continues to burst. Reuters has only admitted twice in the last two days that it doctored images it provided as part of its news service.

I'm afraid that now that big media is starting to come clean, they'll start publishing stories about how there's no such thing as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny...........

Oh crap! Sorry Heidi............ don't let Jessica read this, eh?

My foot is a foot! Coincidence?

I just made an interesting discovery. My size 12(ish) Doc Martens are exactly a foot long! How cool is that? Who needs stuff paced off?

Another Japanese export

I've made brief mention of this phenomenon before, but now it is no longer limited to the confines of Japan. If you truly want to see the odder side of life, you need to check out cosplay. If you want a large collection of cosplayer photos to browse through, this site is the place.

Big MacDaddy Ronald and his biotches......

It's very fascinating how enamored with North American culture the Japanese are, especially their youth. But it seems their tastes are lagging behind somewhat. Regardless, I found this pic very funny. Fo' shizzle my Big Macizzle!

Next step - world domination!

OK all you home science project freaks - this is the ultimate do-it-yourselfer. Make a working motor with just what you see in this picture. The small neodymium disk magnet might be the hardest thing to acquire. I have to go get me one of these things pronto. I could make so much money with this at parties...........

Safety first everyone....... safety glasses everywhere!

OK Go video

Have you ever seen a synchronized treadmill performance before? Well, let me cure that for you right now..........

Wait til you see who plays Pai Mei....

Robot Chicken is at it again. This time they remix Kill Bill with Jesus as the yellow-suited wielder of the last Hattori Hanzo sword in the world.

Warning: If you're easily offended, don't bother. It manages to massacre Santa, the Easter Bunny, Jewish people........

A love song using math terms

If you or anyone you know are well educated in the maths, you'll find this perfomance quite hilarious. It was a little over my head, but clever nonetheless.

Electrifying!

If you like lightning shots, this one taken in Toronto might be worthy as your new desktop background. I knew the CN Tower would make a good lightning rod, but I've never seen it get hit myself.

Make sure to thank the good photographer if you use their shot......

Quite ahead of its time

Doesn't this look like an ultra-modern housing complex prototype yet to be built? If you're not from Montreal you might actually think so. But this is Habitat. It's a complex "designed to integrate the variety and diversity of scattered private homes with the economics and density of a modern apartment building". It's made of modular, interlocking concrete forms and each home can consist of several levels and has a garden. It was completed in 1967 in time for Expo '67. I kid you not.