Snow, book projects, demotivation

More snow today, but thankfully the wind was low, so no major drifting. I'm looking on a couple weather sites, but can't seem to find accurate info. One says we had 0 inches of precip. in the last 24 hours and 0 inches of snow on the ground, which is obviously inaccurate. Another won't show me what has happened, but predicts we'll get another 2 to 4 inches tonight. Why don't they show the actual weather events? Is it because they don't want us to see how bad their predictions were?

• Here is a neat project to create a book wall hanging from public domain books. It is kind of hard to see the results from their pictures. Here is a somewhat related project on the same site.
• As referenced in that book wall hanging link, Project Gutenberg is a great place to get public domain book texts.
• Just got a catalog from them recently, so I thought I'd post the link to Despair, the "demotivator" site. Some clever satire of "Successories" motivational style materials, and the site has a lot of subtle humor.
  

Safe doctrines, next gen media, Firefox, teenager repellant

• Oh good! The works of L. Ron Hubbard will survive a nuclear holocaust. Question, if "-ology" means "the science of", wouldn't that make Scientology "the science of science"?
• Who will win in the next generation DVD wars? Blu-ray or HD DVD? Wait, HVD could make them irrelevant?. It's nice when technologies start to be outdated before we even have them.
• Firefox 1.5 released, for those of you that want an Internet Explorer alternative.
• Teenager repellant. No, not unhip parents, but a sonic device.
  

Blizzard, hamburgler, flipbooks, games

Blizzard! We are buried (maybe "buried" is too strong a word) in ice and snow. Right now, the wind is the worst, and I'm hoping I don't get drifts in the driveway before work tomorrow.

• Ronald MacDonald robs Wendy's. The Burger King has been put on High Alert.
• I recently posted a link to a flip book making service. Here's one, Flipbook Printer, that is free, but you print it out yourself on business card stock.
• The Pong Wall Clock. Probably the best application of Pong ever (... besides the game).
• Nintendo Revolution to be unveiled on May 9. Good move; maybe gamers will start to tire of their Xbox 360s and PS3s by then.
  

Bad products, print services, alternate realities

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.

• Just in time for holiday shopping item avoidance, the list of the Ten Worst Tech Products of the Year.
• If you're at all interested in print-on-demand services, here are a few I ran across in Wired:
• FlipClips- turn home movies into flip books.
• Lulu - publish books, CDs, DVDs, or calendars.
• iUniverse - for publishing and selling books.
• Cafe Press - all kinds of personalized items.
• And of course, most of the major photo services have some neat products, like at Kodak Gallery (Ofoto), Snap Fish, and Qoop.
• I have to admit that I like the idea of "alternate reality gaming" (link to ARGN), but haven't invested much time into it. Back at the time, I followed the CloudMakers (marketing for Spielberg's "A.I."), but really just read the summary of what people were finding.
  

What, mate?, iPod tv, xbox is a smash, wizard at the box office

• Finally we can understand what those people in England are saying, with the British to American Translator.
• Here's a handy tip for playing iPod video on your TV without buying Apple's proprietary video cable.
• Uh, sure... I suppose that's a perfectly good response... smashing your Xbox 360 with a sledgehammer right after spending 55 hours in line to buy it.
• Harry Potter cleaning up at the box office. I saw it last weekend, and enjoyed it tremendously except for the part in the most pivotal scene in the movie (which I won't spoil for you) when the usher comes in flashing his flashlight around the theater and some guy with him repeatedly shouts out for some person he is trying to locate.

Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Light show, small change, warnings, and just the facts

And speaking of holiday decoration (as I have in the last week), check out this absolutely fantastic holiday lighting display! (Link in post by Carson Williams; can open in Windows Media Player.) Now I feel ashamed of my boring old net lights and rope lights.

• Like carrying change, but wish it wasn't so darn big? This site is for you.
• And while you are shrinking your change, you may need a warning label conveniently created by the Warning Label Generator.
  
• If you need the facts on an urban legend or rumor, check out Snopes, a great site for facts about the stories.
• Along the same lines, FactCheck.org is a good non-partisan evaluation site regarding political statements. I visit it frequently during election season, and it basically shows that all politicians have some trouble with their facts.
  

Supercleaners, onion ring emergency, loud mouth, GOP and Goblet

• Finally, the quiz that matters: Superhero or Household Cleaner? I scored a mighty 17 out of 20.
• Woman calls 911 for cold food. I'm no expert, but she should have probably taken her complaint to the manager first.
• Build your own megaphone helmet. For, as the site humorously explains, "the maximal aural stupidity allowed by law".
• House GOP seeks quick veto of Iraq pullout. Or veto of quick Iraq pullout. Your choice.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is sure to clean up this weekend. I will try to see it this weekend, after I finish all of my Potions homework.
  

Pen computing, MacGyver, bar codes, fashion police, cost of a song

Wow, it's getting cold here in Whitmarshall! More snow today. With this dusting of white, I'm getting the urge to turn on those Christmas lights. No.. must... resist until .... reasonable holiday time frame...

• The amazing LeapFrog Fly pentop computer. I read an article about this device a couple months back. It sounds like a cool technology with a lot of potential.
• What Would MacGyver Do? book in the works. The author plans to finish it with a chewing gum wrapper, a paperclip, and a reel of fishing line.
• Would you like to impress nerds at parties? Guide on reading bar codes.
• IT workers dubbed "worst dressed" corporate professionals. Oh, but wait, this was in Australia... whew!
• iTunes to potentially drop the flat rate pricing. I like the idea of paying less than 99 cents for some songs, but I'm not thrilled with the paying more than 99 cents for others part of it.
  

Flix deal, paper pda, the blue marble, xbox guts, and America's sweethearts in danger

• Netflix class action - lawyers get $2.5 million and customers get a free month trial. Umm, yeah... I... guess that's a .... good deal.
• Too cheap for a PDA? The PocketMod might be an easy, low cost solution for you.
• Some awesome Earth images at NASA's Visible Earth.
• Are you waiting for an Xbox 360? These guys got one and already tore it apart.
  
• Aww, who would have ever thought there would be trouble in Spears/Federline paradise?

Blizzardy day, toy mash-up, lost rhapsody, Sony's cd blunder

Ooh, it's cold! Why do I never expect it to be this cold when we're first hit with wintry weather? We had a little snow weeks ago, but today it is actually staying on the ground. Roads were noticibly icy as I left work, and the wind is a killer. I just hope I don't get any drifts in the driveway overnight.

• Star Wars meets Transformers!?! Two of my beloved childhood toys are colliding. If this happened when I was a kid, I just might have fainted from the toy joy overload.
• Fans of "Lost" may enjoy this Lost - Bohemian Rhapsody combination. Lyrically and visually it goes together eerily well. (Might be some spoilers for you if you're behind on episodes.)
• Spotter's guide to CDs that have Sony's XCP protection. Why should you care? Running one of these CDs on your computer will install DRM software (without telling you) that can leave you open to vulnerabilities. (Brief summary here.)

Unfortunately, I ran one of the xcp CDs on my PC before hearing about this (list of known CDs listed in the Spotter's guide link above), so looks like I'll be spending the rest of this evening figuring out how to remove Sony's unwanted junk from my PC.

Not so quick serve, holiday time, IA tornado

A friend convinced me to take another go at KFC/A&W. We went a little earlier in the evening than normal, to dine in at the fine establishment. It was again ridiculous. It is so busy, that I think people are assuming it will close down in a week, so they're trying to get as much out of it now as possible. After we ordered, it was about a 25 minute wait in line to get our orders up. It felt like the experience of standing in line for Star Wars opening show tickets, only with the expectation of mediocre food as your reward.
As an aside, I don't understand why there are people that try to cut in front of you after ordering. They take and fill orders in sequential fashion, so it's not like you'll get your food faster if you can make your way to the pick-up counter faster.
The whole time in line, I never saw an employee come out into the "public" area of the store. Tables went uncleaned, the drink station was an absolute disaster area, and best of all: a couple of times people would go up to the pick-up counter to say "you're out of cup lids" or "you're out of napkins out here", and, get this, the employees would hand them a stack of the item and asked the customer to restock them!
As a final insult, we were watching TV later that night and a KFC commercial showed their chicken combos for a remarkable $4 ("why, that's half the price I'd pay at a 'sit-down' restaurant!"). My friend had one of those same combos and his ticket came to more than 6 bucks.
To sum-up:

• It is bad when I could have gotten my food faster at an Applebee's or Friday's or whatever than at a "fast" food restaurant.
• KFC/A&W brings you a unique experience by making you the customer work the restocking of supplies.
• KFC lies about their prices (or at least the franchisee in our area doesn't follow the commercials).
• Didn't mention it before, but this KFC doesn't even have a buffet. Most of the others I've been to around here
  

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This weekend, I put up my outdoor Christmas lights. I want to stress that I will not turn them on for many weeks, because I don't want to condone early holiday decoration. (I put them up because it is supposed to get really cold this week, and I wanted to get the rope light stakes in the ground before it freezes.) It's bad enough that most of our downtown stores are already decked out for Christmas (same day they took down their Halloween decor), and the discount stores have had holiday stock out for a month or more.
Pretty soon, holidays will just flow from one right into the other. It happens earlier every year and is so hard to keep up that I think I'm going to jump right to the Valentine's Day decorations next week. Thanksgiving gets kind of lost in the shuffle, but thankfully one person on main street has a huge, ugly, inflatable, lighted turkey on their lawn. Thank you, sir or madam! Thank you for not succumbing to the accelerated pace of Christmas cheer!
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Video footage of the Stratford, IA tornado (see links by article). Scary footage, and those videographers should consider themselves lucky. That tornado cut a path of destruction in a blink of an eye (or, not as fast as people put up Christmas decorations, but infinitely faster than our KFC/A&W service).

Album art, teen mayor, tin foil, chimps, more

• Are you an iTunes user and want to import album art? Try this free tool (iTunes Art Importer 0.9.2). It pulls album art from Amazon.com, and worked well for me.
• Wow, a teen write-in candidate wins mayor spot from the incumbent. A teen mayor, who would have thought it!?
• Oh, wait, here's another teen that wins mayor spot. Teen Mayor... sounds like a bad Disney movie.
• Tin foil hats actually increase capability of government mind control rays! Or, at least that's what they want you to believe.
• You too can build an impossible triangle.
• Get your stinking paws off me, you damn, dirty ape!
• Ah, the pitfalls of being interviewed by a Comedy Central news show. I am a fan of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but don't get to see them every day.
  

Lists, pong, TV-VOD, a bad career choice

• Hey, White House enemies list! Click the link to see if you're on it (if you are one of the few famous people mentioned in the article).
• Have you dusted off that old Pong machine and can't remember how to play? The manual is now online. Finally!
• Video On Demand for TV is becoming more popular. You can finally watch TV when you want it without having to deal with that darn "12:00" blinking clock on the VCR.
• Apparently one of the worst jobs this year? Hussein case lawyer.

Video iPod

I broke down and bought a video iPod today. It's about the size of my 3G iPod, but holds 4 times as much, has a bigger screen, and of course can hold video and photos. I have to say, the setup was a lot easier than I remember it being for my first iPod. Also, video looks pretty darn good on that screen.
Other stuff:

• "Lost" reinventing television? It is one of my favorite shows, and I do enjoy the online ramblings of crazy fans, too...
• Speaking of crazy online rambling, the 9/11 tragedy was predicted on the $20 bill!
• The marker clock, an interesting, yet unnecessary device.
  

Food service curse

I broke down and went to the new KFC/A&W (see previous post). The parking lot was full (and there were cars parked on side streets and in adjacent lots), so I decided to go through drive through. It was a pretty darn long wait (and this was at around 1:15pm, so I thought the lunch rush would die down slightly). When I got to the pay/pickup window, I asked the girl to read back what I got because I thought the price was quite a bit more than I mentally calculated (turns out one of the items was twice the cost I thought). She gave me a bag of food and said "thank you, come again", and it took her a little while to realize I was still waiting there because she didn't give me my drink. Comically, she said "wait! don't go yet, I've got to get your drink!", which she then did and I started to drive off (as is the custom). I looked in my bag as I was leaving and found that they left out one of the items in my order (in addition to the almost missed drink), so I had to go back again and wade through the gaggle of people in the restaurant. To top it all off, I thought the food pretty much sucked (I leaned A&W in the order); it was all pretty cold (cold, soggy fries), and the burger was at the bottom of the quick serve quality. Plus there was a dollup of mashed potatoes in the bottom of the bag; and I didn't even order mashed potatoes! (I suppose that was a bonus.)

Quick serve, online books, music advice

Our town just got a new KFC/A&W this week, and I haven't been there yet because it has been unbelievably busy. The couple times I've driven past, the line for the drive through has been at least 20 cars long (so maybe they're really slow instead of really busy). Town, do you think maybe you are overreacting? I mean, come on, it's a KFC and A&W! We had a five star restaurant open earlier in the year that didn't gather this much attention.
Some items:

• Google Print Beta is available and interesting. You might want to read the FAQ as it discusses tracking page views to your id.
• Want music recommendations? I haven't spent much time with these yet, but plan on giving them a closer look: Musicstrands and Soundflavor.
• I haven't heard much talk of the live action "Star Wars" show for a while, but works seems to be moving ahead for more animated shows.
• You know, like books can be, like big. And I, like, totally don't want to read all that. Luckily, soon you can buy books by the page from Amazon. So now you can find out the butler did it in a few short minutes.
  

Well, I'm going to call KFC/A&W for reservations. Oh, I hope I can get my tuxedo cleaned in time!

Flu shots, unledivered mial, silly "celebs", episode 3!, secret jails

Our company had its health expo yesterday and today, so I got my wonderful free flu shot. I wasn't able to get one last year due to the shortages, so it was a welcome benefit to get one this year. Also, I got a screening for cholesterol and glucose; my numbers were so good that I'm wondering if they somehow messed up the test. (I was expecting cholesterol to be much higher.)
Enough about my body chemistry:

• Attention: If you are dyslexic, do not apply for a job delivering mail. Her giudacne counlsre should be seud.
• Ah, the good life of the rich. And they're still such nice people!
• Star Wars Episode 3 now available on DVD. Go! This is your chance to watch all 13 hours of the series in one sitting!
• Umm, I don't think you can call them "secret CIA jails" if they're all over the news.