12-8-08

"Trying to set my old ripped up mattress on fire. How to prevent the house from burning too?

I finally got a new mattress so I want to get rid of my old one. Its too heavy to carry downstairs so I was going to burn it right in the room. How do I prevent from the whole house burning down? I set it in the middle of the room and away from the walls and the walls are covered in foil. Should this be good enough?"

And of course, the expert answers. My favorite: "This is rather an odd question for the pregnancy section."

12-7-08

Nuclear submarines can stay underwater for a year.

12-6-08

Samuel Jackson was in Jurassic Park.

12-5-08

Vaseline can be used to hide scratches on HDTV's.

12-4-08

Chimpanzees have huge balls.

12-3-08

"A Ross Township man accused of shooting his girlfriend waived his right to a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

Authorities say a 17-year-old McCandless girl was shot in the groin on Feb. 27 at Timothy Madden's Perry Highway apartment.

The girl and the 23-year-old Madden were engaged in "bedroom activities" when the gun discharged, police said.

Details are graphic, but police said the incident involved a .45-caliber handgun with a condom on it, and the weapon somehow went off."

The full story.

12-2-08

The Chicago soccer team is called Chicago Fire.

12-1-08

Monster.com is sending me emails against my will with what it thinks are jobs I might like. Let's see what insightful career advice it has for me today:

"My saved search: Technical Writing
Title: Land Combat Electronic Missile System Repairer."

Yes, I do believe that's it, exactly.

11-30-08

Thigh chafing.

===

Marathon runners get bloody nipples.

11-29-08

Giraffes sleep less than two hours a day.

11-28-08

Filet mignon comes from a cow's back.

11-27-08

So I finally played the Wii today. I guess it's fine for stupid "games" like Wii Fit, but for anyone who wants to play an actual, you know, game, it blows. I played the new Smash Brothers and, with the Wii controller, it was worse than the N64 version.

11-26-08

"A desire not to acknowledge depression in ourselves or those close to us -- better known these days as denial, is such a strong urge that plenty of people prefer to think that until you are actually flying out of a window, you don't have a problem."

-- Elizabeth Wurtzel

11-25-08

Order of the Stick. Finally, a D&D comic that's actually good.

11-24-08

The founder of Craigslist was a comp sci major at Case.

11-23-08

Breast implants sink.

11-22-08

Paul had an awesome party at his apartment tonight. I got to play Caylus, Puerto Rico, Magic, and Rock Band 2, all in the same evening!

11-21-08

"I took my husband's i-phone and found a raunchy picture of him attached to an e-mail to a woman ... When I approached him about this (I think that he is cheating on me) he admitted that he took the picture but says that he never sent it to anyone. He claims that ... it is an i-phone glitch: that photos sometimes automatically attach themselves to an e-mail address and appear in the sent folder, even though no e-mail was ever sent. Has anyone ever heard of this happening?"

From the Apple support forum. Read the expert replies here.

11-20-08

Hawaii Chair.

11-19-08

Today is World Toilet Day. According to the World Toilet Organization, anyway.

"Toilets deserve better social status."

11-18-08

Last night, some guy parked his car across the street, shot his 10 year-old kid and then shot himself.

11-17-08

One of my friends is trying to start a revolutionary movement.

11-16-08

The bird that hit Fabio in the face was stuffed and sold on Ebay.

11-15-08

Door-to-door meat salesmen.

11-14-08

Smokers lose their taste buds.

11-13-08

Dogs can be used to hunt for truffles. They're better than pigs, because dogs don't try to eat truffles when they find them.

11-12-08

Some schools now consider "F" a swear word.

11-11-08

1 in 3 children in America are overweight. What's even more sad is that the Cookie Monster now eats vegetables and says that "cookies are a sometimes food."

11-10-08

The plural of "eye" and "cow" used to be "eyn" and "kine." "Eyes" and "cows" were wrong words, like foots and oxes.

11-9-08

"You can't fight ideas with bullets."

-- Deus Ex

11-8-08

In case you missed it, Fallout 3 is amazing. Very different from the first two, but a brilliant game in its own right.

11-7-08

"The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses."

-- Carl Sagan

11-6-08

Q-tips push wax deeper into the ear -- much more wax than they get out. In fact, q-tip packages say nothing whatsoever about earwax removal; they refer to the tips as "applicators," intended for rubbing stuff on. Q-tips do happen to fit in ears, which somehow led to the belief that they're good for removing wax; they're actually completely useless for this purpose.

11-5-08

Michael Crichton died yesterday.

11-4-08

I voted today. Not that it made any difference.

"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it."

-- P.J. O'Rourke

11-3-08

11-2-08

The math problem that Matt Damon's character solves in Good Will Hunting -- the problem that, supposedly, took a team of MIT professors two years to figure out -- is a simple tree puzzle that can be solved in minutes with a bit of trial and error and about 30 seconds' worth of graph theory.

11-1-08

Sichuan peppercorns aren't peppercorns.

Also, after owning it for over a year, I played Shogun and it was awesome.

10-31-08

Pumpkins are a type of squash.

10-30-08

Full Frontal Nerdity.

10-29-08

The US Puzzle and Sudoku Championships.

The "puzzle" part is okay, but...I think this is worse than tournament rock-paper-scissors.

10-28-08

Need a rimshot? Here's one.

10-27-08

PALIN: Hi folks! Sorry I'm late! I brought caribou burgers.

HILARY: Who the HELL is this?

MCCAIN: It's cool, she's with me.

HILARY: No! No, it's not cool! Every time you bring one of your rodeo-queen girlfriends in here she ends up playing some succubus infiltrator and killing the whole party!

MCCAIN: Now, that is patently untrue.

BIDEN: He has a point. Cindy turned out to be a vampire.

There's much more.

10-26-08

Women can actually stop having periods if their body fat gets too low. This happens to anorexics and some athletes.

10-25-08

Contrary to Jerry Seinfeld's classic stand-up routine, the wax used by women to uproot hair is not very hot. The wax itself isn't unpleasant; only the ripping of the hair causes pain.

10-24-08

Romanian and Moldovan are the same language.

10-23-08

Jacek Yerka is a dude who paints cool stuff.

10-22-08

Snakes see in green.

10-21-08

10-20-08

"Raw Horseflesh" is a real flavor of ice cream you can get in Japan.

10-19-08

The Red Sox lost after all. I guess you can only come back from 3-1 so many times.

10-18-08

"One of our neighbors in Tisvilde once fixed a horseshoe over the door to his house. When a common friend asked him, `But are you really superstitious? Do you honestly believe that this horseshoe will bring you luck?' he replied, `Of course not; but I've been told it works whether you believe in it or not.'"

-- Niels Bohr

10-17-08

Kickass articles about game theory.

10-16-08

The old FPS Max Payne is being made into a movie. Here's what star Mark Walhberg had to say:

''I was a little nervous about doing a movie based on a videogame because I grew up playing Pac-Man and Asteroids and there was no story there."

Holy. Shit.

10-15-08

Keira Knightley plays backgammon.

10-14-08

Menger's Sponge.

10-13-08

The reason that most alarm clocks use 9 minutes, 7 minutes, or other odd snooze intervals is that a single digit interval allows the clock to check the time by looking only at the last digit. If a 10 minute interval were used, the alarm clock would require more circuitry in order not to go off immediately after you pressed the snooze button.

10-12-08

xkcd has been on an amazing streak. Here's another link about DRM.

10-11-08

I learned a new puzzle!

The Hat Game is played in teams of three. Each player in a team has a red or blue hat placed on his head, determined at random, and can see his teammates' hats but not his own. With no communication, each player must guess the color of his hat, writing down "red," "blue," or "I don't know." If all three players write down "I don't know," the team loses. If one or more players guess incorrectly, the team loses. If at least one player writes down a color and all of the colors are correct, the team wins.

Teams are given time beforehand to develop a strategy. The strategy can be anything, for example, "If Bob sees that Alice has a red hat, he should write blue," or whatever. What strategy should you use to maximize your odds of winning?

10-10-08

Q: What did Batman say to Robin before they got in the car?

A: Robin, get in the car.

This is my new favorite joke of all time.

10-9-08

This may be real.

10-8-08

A rabbit can kick hard enough to break its own back.

10-7-08

"When I was about 6 I used to believe that clouds were a collection of everyone's farts around the world and that when people farted too much this would cause big rain clouds to form and then it would rain. For a few years I remember being terrified of rain because I believed it to be 'fart water' and I would always cry and have my dad carry me under his umbrella so I wouldn't get any on me."

-- www.iusedtobelieve.com

10-6-08

Freerice has been updated. It has 60 levels now, making my previous high of 47 extremely embarrassing. After much effort I was only able to boost it to 48. I can't imagine the words you'll see in the 50's.

10-5-08

Were children's toys always this terrifying, and we just never noticed?

10-4-08

Proof that unicorns hate mimes:

10-3-08

I missed the vice presidential debate yesterday and decided to do a little catch-up on Youtube. Sarah Palin is not as dumb as she looks. McCain's selecting her may have been the most transparent political ploy of all time, but her "hockey mom" ditsyness is at least partially an act.

10-2-08

Athletes have Gatorade, but playing sports is nothing compared to the extreme intensity of sitting at a computer. That's why we gamers need Mana Potions, the most terrifying energy product in the universe. Don't believe me? Here. I don't care how useful Vitamin B12 is; cramming 6667% of it into a 50 mL capsule can't possibly be a good idea.

10-1-08

Scarlett Johansson got married this weekend.

Damn.

9-30-08

Real product in Japan.

9-29-08

"I don't think I'll ever become an American, Mom. I don't think I'll ever forget Russian. And the main reason I'll never become an American is, because I don't like pizza."

-- Me, when I was 6.

Well, I still remember a little Russian, but I do like my pizza.

9-28-08

"Money can't buy you love, but love can bring you money. In software the only sustainable way to earn money is by first creating love, and then hoping that some folks want to demonstrate that love with their dollars.

The cheddary 'Free to Play' is not just a cheesy marketing slogan, but a shift in assumptions; it costs approaching nothing to give away some bits, or let people play Puzzle Pirates for free. Every player, free or paid, adds value to the community and excitement for other players. Free players are the content, context and society that encourages a small fraction of the audience to willingly pay more than enough to subsidize the rest.

'Not fair', the vendor of music or packaged software cries. Well, tough shit. Nobody added your business to the list of protected species, despite what your lobbyists and lawyers say. Find a business model that's actually appropriate to the 21st century."

-- Daniel James, at Penny Arcade

9-27-08

The farmers' market in Madison is the largest in the country.

9-26-08

Paul Newman died today.

9-25-08

Quick-change artists.

9-24-08

I generally try to keep this blog free of porn, but...I can't resist SFW Porn.

9-23-08

In Iceland, tipping is an insult.

9-22-08

Batteries don't have a constant charge.

9-21-08

Facebook borrowed a line from Google and introduced a Pirate language. It does make Facebook vastly more interesting.

9-20-08

Mario Paint Composer.

9-19-08

Speaking of new versions of classic games, Desktop Tower Defense has been upgraded too. There are new towers now as well as various challenge modes. Unfortunately, the old scoreboards have been cleared, so my mazes are gone forever and I'm going to have to relearn the game.

9-18-08

I don't know when this happened, but there's an expanded version of Stick RPG. That mall thing that was closed before is open now, and you can do crazy things like upgrade your house and play in the stock market.

The best way to make money is still just to max intelligence, though.

9-17-08

Monster's Den.

9-16-08

So Rock Band 2 came out and, honestly, it appears to be crap. The song list is lame and there's nothing new except a handful of completely unnecessary interface changes. I swore off the Guitar Hero series after witnessing the abomination that was GH3, but Guitar Hero: World Tour actually looks a lot more exciting.

9-15-08

Bioware is making a new RPG!!

9-14-08

Which is cooler: ninja dog or ninja cat? I think the cat is a little cooler.

9-13-08

"That's the kind of person that, even if there's no God, they're going to hell."

-- Sam, on Feng Shui consultants

9-12-08

I finally tried a burger at Culver's, the local fan favorite burger joint. It was pretty bad.

9-11-08

Officials: Burglar wakes men with spice rub, sausage whack.

9-10-08

Sam's Club is owned by Walmart.

9-9-08

When you take the GMAT, instead of scratch paper, you get a dry-erase board. Which you're not allowed to erase.

9-8-08

Incident

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Balimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

-- Countée Cullen

9-7-08

I'm not sure what it is with me and pictures that are used as jokes in forums.

9-6-08

Imperius: I fully expect to meet you at the Pearly Gates, little thief, and don't you dare disappoint me.
Phillipe: I'll meet you there, Father... even if I have to pick the lock.

This is a line by Matthew Broderick's character in the 1985 movie Ladyhawke. Awesome line. Shitty movie.

9-5-08

Spaghetti Cat.

9-4-08

Amazons cut off their right boob so they could shoot a bow better.

9-3-08

Cool educational video about spiders.

9-2-08

Soul Calibur now has Mortal Kombat-style fatalities. What is this, 1992?

9-1-08

The new Firefox is ugly. My god, it is ugly.

8-31-08

Really, I'm not sure what to think.