Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is Ginger!

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• It's the time of year to start thinking about Christmas cards. But if you're a real geek, you need these cards.


• 12 free text editors for coders.


• This is awesome. It's a map of the U.S. showing only streets and highways. It's amazing how you can still see physical features like the Adirondacks.


• The perfect digicam accessory: the wrap-up tripod. A tripod and case all in one.


• Destin's Father's Day gift is both weird and a science experiment.


• Collection of LIFE photographs of 70s rock stars in their parents' homes.


• They're crocheted berets made to look like pies. Pie-rets, of course.


• An explosion of technology and communication causes language to increase its vocabulary. If you've ever said, "There oughta be a word for..." then you should visit Addictionary.


• 15 of the most amazing mazes and labyrinths.


• My romelette is nothing compared to the Ramen pizza.


• If you don't have a strong stomach, you may not enjoy 9 of the most bizarre animal defense mechanisms.


• How to wear out a kitten.


• Make your own calendar anywhere with calendar tape.


• The magnificent truck art of Pakistan.


• Chuck Norris is a legend, but Bruce Lee plays ping pong with nunchucks.

Friday Game

Here's a game that will make you crazy because it tests your reaction time and spatial abilities. It's really simple: just dodge the falling blocks. Except that the playing field keeps changing on you. See how long you can last with Distopix.

Thanksgiving Roll

This just in to the Nuclear Toast News Desk: The Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade was Rickrolled.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Everyone have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Remember to eat too much, because that diet resolution kicks in just over a month from now!

Papercraft Turkey

Just in time for Thanksgiving, it's a papercraft turkey!

Face to Face with Technology

A frontal and profile picture are all that's needed to create a 3D representation of your face. From there, the magic of computers lets you see what you could look like at different ages. or if you were a different race. From there, naturally, the next step is getting a full face mask. Of your own face.

It's all at That's My Face.

Thanksgiving Planning

It's not too late to plan for the bacon version of the traditional Thanksgiving Day feast: the turbaconducken.



See how to make your own turbaconducken (turducken wrapped in bacon).

Caption Contest

"Stirrin' stuffin' makes me buffin'!"

The Art of Lunch

You might be surprised to learn that some kids still carry their lunches to school in paper bags. While that may be embarrassing to some, it's probably not for the two kids whose dad draws artwork on their bags each day. They're all on display at Lunch Bag Art.

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is Seayjay.

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• Do you have an iPhone? Do you need an excuse to get out of a meeting or a blind date? Then you need Fake Calls.


• Passwords work, if you do 'em right. But many don't: the most common password is "password1". See how easily bad passwords are cracked.


• 50 beautiful examples of tilt-shift photography.


• A fun little web gizmo that can spruce up a presentation or just give you some background beats: it's the JS-909 beat box.


• It's just a query generator, but it makes it easy for you to make it easy for someone else to find information: Let Me Google That For You.


• LIFE magazine recently opened up its archive of pictures, and they cover every conceivable subject. Such as this series of a 2-year-old smoking.


• Guitar Hero + nighttime bike ride + too much free time = Bike Hero.


• Another entry in the Bacon Files: candied bacon ice cream.


• If you don't follow American Idol, you may not know that this year's two finalists were both named David. Depending on whom you wanted to win, the series finale was either the best or worst day of your life.


• Like, ohmigod, the internet is magic!


• Custom-order your very own pair of clown shoes.


• If you have lots of free time on your hands (and lots of markers), you might enjoy wallpaper you color in.


• Love chocolate? Love math? Love making graphs in Excel? Then you'll love the chocolate pie chart.


• The best part of the Fanboys trailer is the list of stars.


• Pop culture propaganda. I would love to have some of these.


• Persistent penguin evades hungry orcas. (Happy ending.)


• Squirrel-carved jack-o-lantern.


• The (literal) street art of pedestrian crosswalks.


• The off-road commode.


• One of the most totally awesome steampunk things I've ever seen: the steampunk space helmet.


• Slideshow called bees take over a BBQ.

Friday Game

Can this game even be won? Because, seriously, it's really more about being stubborn and refusing to give up. Also, mastering unfamiliar systems.

All you have to do is move your legs and run 100 meters. That's all. Think you're up to the challenge of Qwop?

I'm Warning You!

I took this picture the other day. I think it speaks for itself.



Lunch tampering seems to be the most common workplace problem, judging by the posts over at Passive-Aggressive Notes. (And, yes, I submitted this photo to them.)

Swedish Dance Band Fever

Sure, it's easy to make fun of the 1970s now, but at the time, disco was king. And a specific local flavor was provided by Swedish dance bands.

Marvel at the pictures, snapshots in a time capsule of days gone by. Admire the matching outfits (and general theme of them) and the amazing 70s haircuts. But mostly, just accept them for what they were.

Swedish dance bands.

Coworker Roundup

• "I show up every day and I don't stab people. I think I'm doing a pretty good job."


• "It was, like, hail-sized hail!"


• "I'm a ninja. Screw you guys!"


• "There's a guy in the address book whose name is 'Bruce M.F. Lee'. That is staggeringly awesome!"


• "What an amazing place to work. You walk by an office and you hear, 'Well first you have to find an elf, and then you have to convince her to marry you.'"

Caption Contest

Hold on... hold on... OK NOW! Bertha now... give her the dope...
the fuzz just turned the corner!

Finger Your Food

Do you like to eat with your hands, but you don't like the mess? Or do you have a phobia about touching food with your hands? Then you need Trongs.

These things are seriously cool.

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is first-timer Ginger. Good job!

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• How 10 famous technology products got their names.


• Things not to bring to the ER.


• Shiba Inu puppy cam! (Just try to stop watching if they're playing.)


• While the site's name may be off-putting, the green credentials of the solar clock aren't!


• Why paint, when you can decorate with Sharpies?


• The "love story" of the kitten and the parakeet.


• Guy takes pictures of his girlfriend modeling by his car. Guy posts them on a bodybuilder forum. Internet hilarity ensues (with photoshopped pictures, internet memes, and Brian Peppers) for 62 pages.


• How specialized can a blog be? Here's a photoblog of "cute girls at tea": Tea Birds.


• You may have seen some of the 50 strange buildings of the world before.


• Take some wooden blocks and MRI brain scans, cut up the scans and put them on the blocks, and you get an amazing wooden brain.


• It's a long read, but a fascinating look into how deeply into internet technology a "simple" dating service is. And also what a determined investigator can find on the web. "Single?" Lawn Signs Conquer the American Landscape.


• It may seem like just a regular video, until you click and drag on it to change the view. It's the mis-named immersive 360 degree video.


• What if The Matrix ran on Windows?


• Recently sold at auction: an 1800s vampire killing kit.


• The amazing story of the lost Hiroshima pictures.


• Small kid firing up a large crowd.


• Be careful what you do with the black hole.


• "It goes down stairs alone or in pairs..." It's Slinky cat!


• A collection of the worlds most bizarre and intriguing bus stops (including several from Seattle).


• Who needs pockets?

Friday Game

There's a reason telephone numbers (without the area code) are seven digits long: it's the perfect length for short term memory to retain. How good is your short term memory? Put it to the test with the short term memory checker.

I Can See Clearly Now

Now that the time change is upon us, it gets darker earlier in the day. Like when it's time to go home.

Like many of you, I work in an office park whose buildings are covered in reflective windows. Which is fine during the day; they allow you to see out, yet people outside can't see in. But this all changes when it gets dark.

Everybody has knows someone in their office that has all sorts of weird items decorating their desk. This "flair" can be amusing, confusing, or even downright scary, depending on the person. But you see it from within, and can associate it to a personality.

You see where I'm going here? It's getting dark, you can see in the windows, and you glimpse someone's eclectic mix of decorations... and spend the next ten minutes wondering about tattoos and piercings.

Will the No! No! be a Yes Yes?

When it comes to removing body hair, many techniques have been introduced (and often discarded) over the years, from plain old razors to devices that yank and chemicals that burn.

Now there's a new device that uses plain old heat. I wonder if the No! No! works or not? Either way, I bet it smells the same.

The Invisible Time Change

Every year in the fall when we set our clocks back an hour, ending Daylight Savings Time, it seems to have a dramatic impact on most everyone. People slink and droop and complain for about a week, their entire circadian rhythms disrupted by one little hour.

So why didn't that seem to happen this year?

I suspect that, ironically, timing was everything. We had Halloween the same weekend as the time change. Then, two days later, Election Day.

Apparently, if you do a good job of scaring the crap out of people, they don't even notice that hour.

Caption Contest

Drag Queen — you're doin' it right.

Everyone Needs More Space

The Space Store has some really cool stuff, including this replica Apollo 11 spacesuit.

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is, again, Hurley.

See the original image here.

Visual Aid

Chuck Norris eye drops.

If you're not up on this meme, see what's going on at Chuck Norris Facts.

Activity Corner

• Fly over a frozen landscape with the cool application at Electric Oyster.


• You may not know John Williams, but you know a lot more of his music than you might think. Amaze at the Star Wars a capella tribute to him.


• Just how smart are octopuses? Read exploits of Otto.


• A first-hand account of the Charge of the Light Brigade has been revealed.


• Amazing images captured by high-speed photography.


• The Fake Calls iPhone application.


• Too late for Halloween, but just in time for Batman fans, is the Batman costume hoodie, complete with mask and snap-on cape.


• The 3-axis bubble level for photographers.


• Perform a self-endoscopy in the privacy of your own home, or just check out the insides of machines with this USB digital endoscope.


• I don't really need to say much about the Victor Multi-Kill Electronic Mousetrap other than to watch the peppy video.


• If you don't like reading, there are other uses for books.


• Awesome new game idea for a first-person painter: Swan. Be sure to watch the video.


• So I hear we got a new president this week. Here's a great collection of newpaper front pages around the world.


• Time-lapse photography plus one head of lettuce plus 40,000 crickets equals totally awesome video.


• Build your own starship Enterprise out of office supplies.


• An awesome short with kung fu clowns. That's all that needs to be said, really.


• Artists can create with almost anything, as shown by these sugarcube sculptures.

Friday Game

This is an interesting game because you're always second-guessing your choice of walls as you run and jump and attempt to avoid falling into space. See how far you can Run.

The Downside of Change

Living in Seattle and being near Canada means you often get Canadian change from cash transactions. While about the same size and color as their US counterparts, the Canadian coins are typically quickly identified and shunted off on someone else.

That is, until the US decided to go with these new "states" quarters. The problem with the new quarters is I can't tell at a glance if my change includes Canadian quarters or not.

Change itself is bad enough, but now the prospect of having international change mingling undetected with domestic coins is unsettling in the extreme. Change threat level orange, people.

Behind the Action

When it comes to animation, the background supports the action in the foreground. One thing we rarely see, though, is the backgrounds all by themselves, without all that action clutter. When you do, they seem both vibrant and eerie at the same time.

Bob Richards has managed to get screen captures of the backgrounds of many Disney animations. Enjoy and marvel at them on the Animation Backgrounds blog.

Bacon Cinnamon Rolls

My latest cooksperiment is putting into practice a recent link I posted: bacon cinnamon rolls. They're easy to make, and incredibly tasty.

All you need is some bacon (or, in my case, fake bacon) and a cannister of cinnamon rolls.


Naked ingredients.


Separate the rolls, unroll them, and apply bacon strips to the "inside" of the rolls.


Roll them back up and place in an appropriate baking receptacle.


Bake 'em.


Top 'em with the (included) frosting.


Mmmm, tasty!


Not wishing them on my waistline, I took them to work. Apparently, they were a big hit, although it was hard to tell with all the buzzsaw noises.

The lab notes:

• If you use real bacon, make sure you cook it first. Not too much that it's stiff; just enough to be cooked yet still flexible so you can roll it up.


• When you unroll the rolls, the "cinnamon" goo-filling gets on whatever you unroll them on. So be prepared to scrape it off and smear it back on the rolls.


• Don't worry if you don't get the unrolled rolls all rolled up tight again. The gaps allow the icing to penetrate the rolls, filling them with extra awesome.

Enjoy! And let us know if you try 'em yourself!

Edit 02/11/2009
With the recent popularity of this post (and the number of carnivores wishing to try it), let me pass on some tips when using real bacon:

• You need to cook the bacon first. Not so long that it's crunchy; you still want to be able to roll it up.


• A friend that made them said, "I wasn't prepared for the amount of grease." He literally had to pour out the bacon fat after taking them out of the oven. Which tends to make the rolls a bit soggy.


• The above friend decided that the taste difference isn't that great, so he'd go with the "facon" from now on just because it's faster and easier.

Caption Contest

The Real Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Electoral History

As informed voters know, the public doesn't elect the president, the Electoral College does. Review how the electoral votes were allocated (and the popular vote distribution) throughout our nation's history at Electoral Maps.

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is hurley.

See the original image here.