Twisted Review

I have a pretty wide selection of Christmas music. And, after listening to this album:

...I have to say, it's pretty good. Have a headbangin' holiday!

Activity Corner

• Mr. Eyegas has issues with Brussels sprouts. In 2005, he cracked us up with the simple (and seemingly unending) game Attack of the Sprouts. This year, he's back with the scatalogical sequel, Christmas with the Sproutifarts.


• Is it a blog? Yes, sort of. But the URL says it all at Is It Christmas.


• It's all over the intertron, so I might as well have it, too. Money shots.


• It's closer to Christmas than to Easter, but it's still funny. Three ways to melt chocolate bunnies.


• Kids love to jump on beds.


• Stir-fried Wikipedia.


• Seven incredible natural phenomena you've never seen.


• Most people seem to dislike lawyers. Is there a reason for this? Apparently so. Why you shouldn't go to law school.


• Proving that there's never enough testosterone in the world, idiots go 219 on the 202.


• One thing we all complain about is how hard it is to eat a snack while on our bicycles. Well, complain no more.


• The strongest beer in the U.S.


• Remember the YouTube oddity, Chocolate Rain? Now Dr. Pepper has produced a music video for their new flavor, Cherry Chocolate Rain.


• The ten most famous ciphers and writing systems that are still unsolved.


• An amusing distraction: feed your pet goldfish.


• Have you downloaded music from the internet without paying for it and still feel bad about it? Now you can buy back your guilt at Dear Rockers.


• Scary-ass Mary Poppins.

The Red Swingline

I finally remembered to bring in the red Swingline stapler that Raggs got for me. It had been stashed in the box o' crap from my last job, and I kept forgetting about it. But now it's here. And everyone who comes in my office, without exception, 1) knows the reference, 2) comments on it, and 3) picks it up.

Time for a quote:

And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...

Flight of the Wayback Machine

I got together with a few work friends last night to watch the 1986 Disney movie Flight of the Navigator. It was funny because, while planning the get-together to watch it, everyone (and I mean everyone) had the exact same reaction: "OMG, I haven't seen that in forever!"

The movie, while somewhat cheesy by today's standards, and co-starring a very young Sarah Jessica Parker, was still entertaining. Sure, we hurled a few witty comments at the screen here and there, but overall it was enjoyable to watch. Trivia: Even though the voice of the spaceship is credited as "Paul Mall," it is actually Paul Reubens (Peewee Herman).

But we may have unleashed a monster. There is already talk of rockin' it old-school geek style with TRON, The Last Starfighter, and Wargames.

Holidays are Go!

Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are over, the holiday season is officially in full swing. I think my grandpa said it best, but then, he always did.

Here's an appropriate quote from Dave Barry:

"Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice."

Help keep yourself in the spirit by listening to the music as much as you can by finding your nearest holiday music format radio station.

Caption Contest

He always complained that faces came out of the rain...

Caption Contest Winner

He may have won by default, but this week's winner is DK.

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• Imaginative photographs created by using a different perspective at dreams of flying.


• Proving you can improve your vocabulary while enjoying gratuitous female objectification, it's 9 words that don't mean what you think.


• In the 70s there was a Saturday morning TV show, patterned after the popular show Get Smart, called Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp. It was all live-action chimpanzees. And since every show had to have a band, they had Lancelot and the Evolution Revolution.


• You've seen the angry German gamer kid. Right here on the NT blog, you've seen the beauty contestant's Star Wars Theme on her trumpet. Put the two together and you get the angry German Star Wars mashup.


• Is "Black Friday" the busiest shopping day of the year? Actually, no, it's not.


• The procrastination flowchart.


• Do all your best idea doodling on a cocktail napkin? Then you'll want a napkin notebook.


• Are you a whiz at HTML? Then take this little quiz which asks How Many HTML Elements Can You Name in 5 Minutes?


• If you make a mix CD for that special someone this holiday season, don't put it in a regular old plastic things. Put it in an origami CD case.


• If you ever want to be on survivor, or just win a bet, you'll be interested in bugs you can eat.


• What's an environmentalist do when he wants his own island? He builds it. Welcome to Spiral Island.


• 10 Awful Words and the People They’re Named For.


• Star Trek’s 10 Cheesiest Classic Creatures.


• How many characters can you name from the cult movie picture?


• Frustrate yourself with your geographical knowledge at How well do you know the world?


• The 25 greatest viral videos ever (so far).


• What if Abraham Lincoln were a CEO today? He'd probably deliver the Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation.


• It's too much work for me, but you might enjoy a bacon-wrapped turkey.


• What is the reading level of your blog? Surprisingly, this one checked in as "College (undergrad)".

Happy Thanksgiving!

Or as I call it, National Eating Day. Thanksgiving is always the gold standard of overeating which I refer to throughout the year. "I'm full, but I'm not Thanksgiving full," is a common statement after a large meal.

So watch your parades, eat your traditional foods, and watch your football. Just remember to get to bed early, because tomorrow is Opening Day in the Professional Shopping League, and you have to get up early to compete!

Video Game Discovery

Tonight, The Discovery Channel begins its documentary series on video games with the first episode (titled, appropriately, Level One) at 8pm. See the ancient history that gave rise to an entire industry on Rise of the Video Game.

My Eyes!

They repainted the walls at work using the colors from the product's logo. After seeing expanses of hallways visually assaulting you with the bright, unreal colors, it dawns on you why they're used so sparingly in the actual logo.

Caption Contest

New "face condom" all the rage among nerdy wookies.

Caption Contest Winner

The latest winner is DK. Funny caption!

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• Everyone would love to prank a telemarketer like this.


• Are the Rocky movies cliche? Well, they can be summed up fairly well: Rocky in 5 seconds.


• I'm not sure how useful it is as a dictionary, but it's an interesting visual thesaurus: Visuwords.


• How to win at Monopoly – a surefire strategy.


• A Saturday Night Live piece that never aired: The iPhone Ad.


• Winter is coming, and you know how cold your hands can get. Help keep them warm with a heated keyboard.


• The alphabet of geeky horror.


• An interesting collection of abandoned swimming pools.


• Colleen loves giraffes so much that she got a connect-the-dots tattoo.


• A compendium of 150 Monty Python sketches.


• An art exhibition showcasing zombie heads made out of felt.


• Back in 1946, drowning was a major, preventable cause of death. In this Popular Mechanics article, check out page 3 for the before-CPR "Eve method".


• Pac-Man + Super Mario Brothers = PacMario!


• Just in case you haven't seen it, here's the ghostly gas station cloud.


• This one's all over the tubes too. Take a Bollywood movie song, subtitle it with what you think they're saying, and you have My Loony Bun is Fine Benny Lava.


• The true Da Vinci code.


• What the hell is the monkeysphere?


• Love on the internet: the Halo 3 wedding proposal.


• Star Trek phaser "toy" + Blu-Ray laser diode = DIY Star Trek Phaser.


• Dancing Stormtrooper in Tokyo.


• Great t-shirt: Yes, I am quietly judging you.


• Geekiest football halftime show ever.

Halloween Leftovers

Dear guy down the hall,

You work with a bunch of geeks and nerds. Halloween was two weeks ago. That Halloween candy you still have in the bowl? Just throw it away. It's still sitting out because it sucks and no one wants it.

The McPizza

Once again, Nuclear Toast Laboratories returns with a new cooksperiment. I can't take credit for the idea, since I saw it on the intartubes, but that didn't stop me from investigating this concept and bringing you the hard-hitting, gritty truth.

I love pizza. So any opportunity to try a new type of pizza is always welcome. And since this one doesn't seem to have any name, I've dubbed it "McPizza".

First, we need some ingredients. Boboli (whole wheat, of course), sauce, cheese, and... what? Mickey D's?


The contents of the McD's bag: two cheeseburgers, medium fries, 4-piece chicken McNuggets. And, inexplicably, a straw.


Start with the Boboli crust.


Add sauce, top with oregano.


It's me, so it has to be spicy, which means jalapenos.


Add the key McToppings.


Layer on the cheese.


Close-up of some key ingredients.


Bake at 450 for about 15 minutes until the cheese starts getting crunchy around the edges. Here's the McPizza fresh out of the oven.


I used a pizza cutter to slice up all the McGoodness.


Round-robin bite-taking to distribute the delicious taste sensations. Hamburger-y fry-y chicken-y pizza!


To answer everyone's first question, it tastes exactly like you'd expect. Hamburger+pizza or french fries+pizza or chicken nugglets+pizza. That being said, this is one of the most awesome pizzas I've ever had, and believe me, I've put away my fair share. The pickles in the cheeseburger are a nice touch; the fries are just amazing this way, and the chicken McNuggets are surprisingly delicious. Maybe it's just the jalapenos.

The lab notes section:

• This thing is really filling. Extremely filling. So a smaller pizza than you're used to will feed the normal crowd.


• Smush the cheeseburgers in the wrapper before you put them on the pizza, so they're not as vertical.


• I had to arrange the fries to get good coverage without a lot of holes or parts hanging over the edge.


• Eating was a challenge, as the cheese helped make the toppings a layer that wanted to separate from the sauce/crust combination below. So taking a bite would cause the whole topping layer to rise up, pivoting at the bite point, and smack you in the nose. This is a sloppy-eating pizza.


• Reheating was easy. One minute in the microwave, then about 8 minutes in the oven to restore the crispness.

Would I make the McPizza again? Oh HELL yes.

Trolley Trash

The Park and Ride at the work end of my daily bus commute is often host to discarded shopping carts. The nearest store is at least a quarter mile away, but the other day, there were five carts dumped in the greenery near the bus stops. One from Fred Meyer, one from Whole Foods, and three from Target.

What is wrong with people? Ok, I get it that the stores are a bit of a hike, and it's hard work to actually carry their purchases. Or do they buy so much that they can't carry it all? Either way, I think we're dealing with some serial shoppers here.

I wonder how (or even if) the carts make their way back to their respective stores. They do seem to disappear infrequently. But in my anger at people who, for whatever reason, fail to follow the etiquette of civil shopping, I derive a little pleasure thinking of those people at their destination as they unload all their loot off the bus onto the sidewalk, and then stand there staring at it, blinking as they gradually realize they have no way to get all their stuff home.

Sherpas are in such short supply these days!

Caption Contest

For first time in recorded history,
a music store employee is stoned.

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is me, since the two posted entries didn't quite make the cut. But hey, at least they tried, unlike the rest of... oh, I think you know who you are.

See the original image here.

World Domination

The throwdown (some items replaced to protect the guilty):

Here at [group], we’re hard at work daily preserving, for posterity, the inner workings of an empire destined for greater, bigger, and more inexplicably frustrating things than any of us dare to dream. Together with the tools team, we provide the rough but delicate wicker framework that undergirds the plump cushion of operations in the deck chair that is [product]. You think you know gaming, my friend? Pah! WE know gaming.

That is why the good people of [room number] have decided to extend the right hand of friendship and spirited competition to you (even while palming a dagger near our hips with our left) and invite you to experience the latest advancements in gaming technology. Lovers of real time strategy*, lucky rolls, long campaigns, bitter clashes of red vs. white dice, and all things warlike will find much to love as we embark on our new game together.

• Experience for yourself the thrill of rolling a two and still pulling out a victory when your opponent manages only a single dot on his own die!
• Be there as the tiny plastic cannon the size of Massachusetts becomes nine men, then seven, then six, then a horse!
• Feel the adrenaline course through your veins as you occupy the indefensible European continent!
• Own the indescribable feelings of shouting, “No! Not Irkutsk!” as the hordes swarm the border from Kamchatka!

All of these experiences and more can be yours! Yes, we are talking about Risk. If you think you’ve played long board games before, well, buckle up, Pardner, because this is going to be a long and bumpy ride like you’ve never seen. So use that paid ten minute break at 2:00 PDT today to attend our opening ceremonies. Choose your army (current options are The Armada Azul, The Crimson Scourge, The Negro (that’s nay-gro, you know, Español) Murder Militia, The Grey Matter, and Los Caballeros Villanos Amarillos, though naming rights can be purchased for a nominal fee), place your mans, and hold on for dear life. One or two turns per workday means weeks of inspiring battlefield bravery, heartwrenching drama, and daring invasions before the final die is cast. Be there, or be elsewhere.

The generals gathered and prepared to do battle. The first day's results (just setting up the armies):

Stay tuned...

*Note: This game is not real-time strategy.

Activity Corner

• Anybody like Henry Rollins? Wonder what he's like just hanging out at home?


• From the Department of WTF is a lady who trained her cat to eat with a fork.


• Hippie vandals use green graffiti.


• Sorry, Seattle. The most caffeinated city is Chicago.


• Why are they called "trailers" if they're shown before the movie?


• 25 photographs taken at exactly the right time.


• 3D chess? Boring. You want a 3D game that is fast-paced and almost requires drinking, like 3D Pool.


• "I played D&D for the CIA."


• In response to the guy selling one of the largest video game collections ever, check out the world's most expensive video games.


• The Discovery Channel is running a documentary series called The Rise of the Videogame.


• One of the hottest laptops on the market is the smallest and lowest cost: the Eee PC.


• While this video is labeled as "iceberg collapse," it's actually the terminus of the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina's Los Glaciares National Park. But the awesome video is still amazing.


• This cat loves his horse.


• Take music cover art, overlay them into a collage-like image, and you have matching album covers.


• It's been said that the lottery is a tax on people who aren't good at math. Definitive proof?


• The Leaning Tower of Pisa is no longer the leaningest.


• MC Hammer? Can't sew this!


• Wired magazine's saddest cubicle contest.


• The Dutch shopping site isn't online yet, but their "Coming Soon" page is very clever. Don't do anything, just click the link and watch the fun.


• Some people haven't yet seen the most amazing last-second football play ever.


• Geeks like to customize things. So how about your own customizable welcome mat?

Reflections on "Get a Life"

As a huge computer nerd, video gamer, and general all-around geek, I've heard my share of "Get a life!" from people. You know, the ones who think that exercise and socializing and exposure to daylight somehow make you a real person. Well, fear not, for my fellow geeks have come up with some fine ripostes to this standard put-down.

• "I'll get a life when I determine it's better than the one I already have."


• "Get a life? I'm a gamer, I have unlimited lives!"


• "Get a life? I HAVE a life! It just so happens that escapism is a major part of it!"

So take that, you big meanies!

Sleep is good for you?

Any health benefit your body derives by sleeping until it wakes up naturally is immediately negated by the near-heart-attack you suffer when you suddenly realize your alarm didn't go off, you've overslept, and you're now late.

It's Not a Run, It's a Race

Raggs and I ran a 5k race on Sunday. You've got to admit, it's pretty impressive that the girl can 1) even get me away from the computer, and 2) get me to participate in organized athletics.

I am not competitive at all. Or so I thought, until I pinned a number to my shirt. Somehow that rectangle of tyvek turns you from an unconcerned participant into someone whose only goal is to pass the next person in front of you. Over and over. So we gathered in the early morning sea of spandex, ready to attack the course.

As the crowd surged away from the starting line, we noticed a runner with a leash. There was a taut blue line connecting a guy around 40 to a dark brown dachshund. "Oh man," we said to each other, "that's not right. He can't run the whole race with that little thing!"

We quickly entered the crowd, went around the first corner, through downtown, and then up the first mile's incline. We began passing those that fell prey to the Darwinian hill, knowing a nice downhill was ahead of us. Cresting, we let gravity help us pass even more, although Loud Breathing Guy used his amazing megaphone breath to practically override our autonomic best attempts at respiration.

Along the waterfront, we continued our assault on those ahead of us. As we passed the 3-mile mark, we looked up ahead to see a taut blue line. Dozens of yards in front of us, we could see the hyper little dog still straining against the leash. It followed an arc, running back and forth in front of the guy, legs pumping furiously, obviously being held back by its blue tether. I started laughing, and, out of breath from the run so far, found out what it feels like to laugh and gasp at the same time. It ain't pretty, people.

We pushed on to the end, only blocks away, and kicked it out to cross the finish line. We bettered our time from last year by about half a minute, and as we stood there, breathing hard, we saw the guy and his dachshund. His face was so red and he was panting so hard that I thought he might be about to have a heart attack. The dachshund, however, was not panting, and was obviously looking to go on, especially with all the runners crossing the finish line right in front of her. I think someone might be slipping a little crystal meth into the Alpo, if you catch my drift.

No matter how cute she was, and how much she let us pet her, there was no way around the truth. I was beaten by a speed demon weiner dog with, like, 4-inch legs.

It's a good thing I'm not competitive.

Caption Contest

"It's a bird. Check. It's a plane. Check. It's super...
Alright, where's the dude in the tights?"

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is Andy. Nice Halloween-related caption, dude!

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• When you're a girl with both fashion sense and an NRA membership, where do you shop for hardware? Why, at GlamGuns.com, of course!


• The Advil Taste Test Challenge.


• First came snipurl for making long, complicated URLs shorter and easier to use. Then along came DecentURL. But with a tag line of "Because bigger is better, right?" you can get your Brobdingnagian on with HugeURL.


• Why play CDs in a boombox or stereo device when you can go all Liberace with the Cathay piano CD player.


• What happens when someone takes instructions too literally. Apparently, this.


• Start preparing for Halloween next year by following this easy how-to for making a head in a jar.


• More than you ever wanted to know about the official rock song of the state of Washingon, Louie Louie.


• It's tough being a kid. Share the shame at Mortified.


• Make your very own Pumpkin Pi.


• Dark Roasted Blend has a great set of pictures titled Heavy Machinery Acrobatics.


• Halloween costume that's a YouTube video.


• Don't make up your own excuse for missing work, let the pros at the Excused Absence Network.


• HG Wells' classic The War of the Worlds has been in print for over 100 years. Celebrate the diversity in this online book cover collection.


• Darth Vader in love.


• How can someone look so bored while being so good at rollerblade freestyle?


• Disney's Small World ride has to be revamped due to what can only be described as delicious irony.


• Susan makes custom creepy dolls. The gallery starts here.


• Pictures of the steampunk flux capacitor.


• Yes, someone cares enough to write about the art of sharpening pencils.


• I'm not sure what it specifically has to do with HP Lovecraft, but it's still a cool poster.


• In the ongoing arms race for new deep fried foods at fairs, the new weapon is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.


• Too late for Halloween, but just in time for winter weather, comes the bloody saw scarf.


• The interesting story of the crabs of Christmas Island.

And We're Off...

How was your Halloween, good? Got lots of extra candy around now, either at home, or the office, or both? It's so good, can't resist...

Halloween marks the beginning of the end-of-year calorie-athon. It starts with all the candy and treats destined for Trick-or-Treaters. Then we have the build-up to Thanksgiving, our national eating holiday. (I know that I personally have two levels of food bloat: full, and Thanksgiving full.) Add in the holiday parties for work and with friends, the non-stop cooking and goodies that show up throughout the season, and combine with the shorter, darker days and worsening weather, and the end result is something that makes you throw sheets over your mirrors and make one of those I'm-going-to-really-lose-weight-this-time New Year's resolutions.

I'll be good, right after one more peanut butter cup. Ok, two.