Carted Off

Shopping cart graveyard at the bus stop. I've ranted about it before. But the stacking, like in the "leave your cart here" corrals in the store parking lots, is new.

Zombie Environmentalist

Raggs and I went to the Seattle Green Festival this weekend. It's a great expo that runs the environmental gamut, with lots of cool products and ideas for a greener planet.

At one point, during a lull in the action, I was watching Raggs play a zombie survival game on her iPhone. I wondered aloud, "Is killing zombies considered recycling or composting?"

She laughed and Twittered it.

What do you think?

Caption Contest

"Now click your heels three times and say, 'I wish I wasn't a tramp.
I wish I wasn't a tramp. I wish I wasn't a tramp.'"

Ghosts: Pics or It Didn't Happen

Hauntings: The Science of Ghosts recently invited netizens to send in pictures for their "ghost" photograph project. While that project is over (save for the symposium on April 4th), you can still view and vote on submitted photos at the Science of Ghosts blog.

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is ParticleJam.

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• It's tax season, so make sure you get all your deductions straight. Such as Tax Information for Parents of Kidnapped Children.


• Ok, this is reading (I know!), but still awesome. You'll be amazed at how they did it. School kids measure distance to the Moon.


• British group covers a song, using only iPhones and App Store apps.


• Top 10 time-lapse videos show nature at work.


• 100+ funny photos taken at unusual angles.


• Like turkey for Thanksgiving? Bored with the everyone's-doing-it deep-fried version? Then you need, if just for the name alone, the turkey cannon.


• A British design team is attempting to break the world speed record (set in 1906) for a steam-powered car.


• Go all Flintstones on your guests with stone "ice" cubes. I love the "Stone does not melt" in the description.


• Iron Man versus Bruce Lee.


• The story of Little Red Riding Hood, retold in hi-tech infographic style.


• Start with the trailer to Wall-E, and dub it with the Watchmen trailer's audio, and you have the Wall-E Watchmen trailer mashup.


• Remember the cantina band song from the original Star Wars? Ever heard it on a harp?


• Also, the Imperial March played on a hard drive.


• More periodic table fun (a new geekmeme): periodic table of controllers, periodic table of Xbox games, and periodic table of Final Fantasy characters.


• Batman's batlogo has changed over the years. Watch the mighty morphing Batman Icon's Mutation.


• The top 10 extinct beasts.


• Cat cleans fennec fox.


• Japanese cat Maru, who loves sticking his head in boxes, returns with a bag.


• Matt Hoyle's old-timey-style photographs of some of the last of the sideshow performers.


• Mysterious celebrity tattoos.


• Not big enough for Friday Game status, but still interesting. Can you get out of the White Zone?


• Kill Bill (parts I and II) in one minute. (Yes, these are the same people that did the Forrest Gump one.)


• Harmonica + beatbox.


• World's most impressive explosions of lava. (Although I think "explosions" is a bit sensational, based on the content of the page.)


• Pouring sheets of lead for pipe organs.


• Honda's new commercial promoting their hybrid car.


• Men in Black bloopers.

Friday Game

Thanks go to Urn for showing me this simple puzzle platformer. The graphics are bare bones, but there are lots of levels, and lots of conundrums for you to solve.

It's called Transmover.

Bin Wonderin' – Update

I recently posted a picture from the office. It turns out that the sign has started a conversation. A written conversation. Click for bigger:

Apparently, the plot thickens. I'll let you know of further developments.

Pre-Loaded

If you've watched or played anything in Flash, you've probably seen some sort of "pre-loader", the little animation showing how much of the Flash has been downloaded before it can start playing.

And, this being the internet, it means someone out there is loading up these pre-loaders for posterity. Although most of them tend to be commercial or corporate ones, it doesn't hurt that some of them are really cool.

Check out Pretty Loaded.

Street Art

A nice bit of street art graffiti I spotted in Seattle's Madison Valley.

Oh, The Huge Manatee

Why? Because I say it frequently, and it still cracks me up. Each and every time.

Caption Contest

"Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for MEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Old Age, New Beige

If you've had computer gear for years, then you know that 1) most everything used to be beige plastic; and 2) over time, the beige plastic turns an icky yellow.

Some people like hanging on to their old gear, but want to make it look new again. Thankfully, a group of computer-geek-chemists were able to develop a solution (pun intended) for this problem. One which they share freely on the web at Retr0Bright.

The Gallery has a lot of before and after shots.

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is Hurley.

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• Nice comparison of the five smartphone platforms.


• Tactile illusions.


• Operating system interface design between 1981-2009.


• Deaths of gamers leave their online lives in limbo.


• More periodic table fun: Final Fantasy characters and typefaces.


• Extreme sheep LED art.


• So it starts out as an anti-drug thing, but the really cool part is you record a message and turn the sound waveform into a bracelet. Wear your voice on your wrist for only 18 bucks: The Sound Advice Project.


• If you're a computer gamer like me, and your children are computers, then you need a Vision 1 workstation.


• Purchase your own officially licensed Watchmen doomsday clock, as seen in the movie.


• What do you get when you combine a raving Mac fanatic with love for anime and too much disposable income? Mac Life (4).


• I couldn't really get a good beat going, but it's still fun to play with the drums beatbox.


• And people make fun of my cooksperiments. Burger grease art.


• Bear pole dancing.


• Looking for unusual non-skid sticker for your shower? Try a banana peel.


• Where did so many of those old TV sitcoms supposedly take place? Visualize it with the USA sitcom map. (Although, technically, some of the shows shown weren't sitcoms.)


• Do you remember the Carlton dance?


• Drunk squirrel.


• The rapping flight attendant.


• 10 bizarre food festivals.


• 10 fake brands used by the entertainment industry.

Friday Game

If you know your Princess Bride, then you know, "To the pain." And that's what this version of Tetris is. Pain. One guy took over 34 hours to lose.

Do you have the staying power to get even just one line to clear? Succumb to Tetoris.

(It's a Flash file, so you can download it to your computer and play locally. Which is just what an OCD gamer like me needs.)

Coworker Roundup

• A: "C, I want to die."
  C: "I can help you do that."
  A: (almost spits out mouthful of soda) "Best program manager ever."


• Guy1: "Do you want to tell my why you're pissed at me?"
  Guy2: "Do you theoretically have 30 minutes?"


• "I'm not doing this because I want to make a name for myself. I'm doing this because I was late."


• "The thing that would crack my shit up the most would be going to a call center and not seeing one Indian person there."


• Guy1: "It's your office too, dude!"
  Guy2: "That doesn't mean you don't still scare me."


• Guy talking to a girl: "I can do some things with one hand."


• Guy1: "I got a new tattoo this weekend."
  Guy2: "Is that real?"
  Guy1: "It's real."


• "You have some corruption in your sanity folder."


• "I understand the theory behind that, but I also understand the theory behind getting shit done."

Stop That Cam

You've got a webcam, right? Most people do. In fact, pretty much all new laptops come with them built right in. But once you've chatted with someone in Slovenia, and after recording a YouTube vlog, what else is there to do?

Try creating an animation of yourself with Web-Cam-Stop-Motion.

Bagpipes?

I work at a pretty cool place where people not only dress up for St. Patrick's Day, but also bring their frikkin' bagpipes to work and play them in the hallway.

Side note: Bagpipes indoors are unbelievably loud. Like front row rock concert loud. Also, yes, I know they're Scottish, but what did your coworkers do?

I Gotta Take This Call (Hic)

It may be too late to get one for this year's green beer, but it never hurts to be prepared with a cell phone flask. Complete with belt clip!

Bin Wonderin'

Spotted at work in the supply room.


Poor guy was so confused, he couldn't even make it a question.

(For the record, you put papers you want shredded in the hinged tray at the front and, like a mailbox, they fall inside the bin. I guess the shred sign fell off.)

Wearin' of the Green

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Let's celebrate the death of St. Patrick by wearing green and drinking green beer. ShamROCK!

Caption Contest

American tourist in Japan.

Cross Section

You start with a huge number of New York delis, add their large selection of sandwiches, top it off with a scanner, and you've got Scanwiches.

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is Anonymous.

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• The "Tell Us Your Vise-Grip Story" finalists.


• While the claymation is fun, nothing beats the narration in the film, Reproduction Cycle Among Unicellular Life Forms Under the Rocks of Mars.


• What do models look like before and after they get made up for shows or photo shoots? Find out at Model-morphosis.


• 7 intriguing genetically-modified fruits and veggies.


• You've seen many of them before, but here they are all in one place. The funniest newspaper clippings.


• The story of the woman named Marijuana Pepsi Jackson.


• 20 beautiful video motion pieces.


• Forrest Gump told in one minute.


• See-through light-transmitting concrete. Can Star Trek's transparent aluminum be far behind?


• Crossover flywheel training for ice hockey players.


• The most extraordinary flower gardens. (Their hyperbole, not mine.)


• COPS for Kids!


• World War II pictures from Leningrad, juxtaposed with present-day pictures of St. Petersburg (its name now) are a startling study in Leningrad Siege: Now and Then.


• What happens to stuff left in a foreclosed house? The trashout squad.


• Mixing music is nothing new. But Kutiman mixes YouTube videos. Amazing.


• The chalkboard mug.


• Motivational-style posters plus online video stills equals 20 online video de-motivational posters.


• 24 ridiculously expensive everyday items.


• Time for more Daft Punk and "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"! Daft Punk + Snow White = Dwarfed Punk. Mix your own version with iDaft.


• Everybody probably has a VCR that they're not using any more. But don't throw it away, hack it.


• Huge gallery of pictures of New York City from the 1880s to the 1960s.


• Bad paintings of Barack Obama. Hit the reload circle in the bottom right.


• This is too outrageous not to post, but I'm warning you, it's NOT SAFE FOR WORK. Take the "job" out of "blow job" with the Blowguard.

Friday Game

In most side-scrolling games, you endure level after level of consistently harder and more numerous foes, grabbing power-ups and lives on the way. All for the purpose of squaring off against the big boss. But what if you got all that level nonsense out of the way and went straight to the epic final fight right off? Then, my friends, you'd be playing Ultimate Crab Battle.

And you're riding a shark shooting missiles. Awesome.

Frank Miller's "Charlie Brown"

Click to larger-ize.


Done by Timothy Lin. You should peruse his DeviantArt gallery.

Unreleased NES Game!! RARE!!!!1

I quote from the post on YouTube:

I have obtained exclusive footage from an unreleased NES game prototype! I've managed to capture five minutes of never-before-seen gameplay video!

You play as an Italian deli owner armed only with a steady supply of hoagies. You must make your way through a perilous world of danger to destroy the forces of evil.

This game may have been kept off of store shelves due to its controversial title, "Hitler's Revenge". However, unlike "Bionic Commando", Hitler isn't actually IN this game. It may just be a simple translation error which was common in the mid-80s.

I believe the most likely reason for the game's demise is its intense difficulty that makes "Ghosts 'n Goblins" look like a walk in the park. I've heard that this game is so hard, the programmers didn't even bother adding a second level. A cheat code had to be used to warp to advanced locations.

There's also a rumor that a play tester went insane and died as a result of playing the game for an extended period of time. Fearing similar occurrences with home players, the game was scrapped.

For even more information about this incredibly rare discovery, visit MazeGuy - The Challenge.

The Transporter is Out of Order

Better check with Scotty first.

The Elements of Gaming

Some guy, known only as "I Heart Chaos", has put together a totally awesome periodic table of video game characters (click to embiggenfy):


I love how he found a game character to represent each element symbol. The graphic is from his site (posted here), where there's a link to order a poster of it.

Get Your Animate On

This site has an easy-to-use interface that lets you quickly and easily put together an animated adventure. Here's one I did in about 45 minutes (you know, after lots of tweaking and "finalizing"). I call it Starship Bloggerprise:



You have to sign up to use the site, but I found it a fun and creative diversion. Check out Go!Animate.

Let us see what you do by linking to yours in the comments.

Why Do We Need to Save Daylight?

It's that time of year again. As a prelude to the longer days of summer, we've reset our clocks an hour in order to screw up our Circadian rhythms for a week. It also means that it stays light further into the evening hours.

Great. As if I don't have enough trouble covering up my windows to avoid letting that nasty daylight into my geekcave. Natural light reflecting off monitor screens, a.k.a. glare, is bad for your eyes. Daylight Savings Time is Gamer Suffering Time.

Bitchin' Hitchin'

Raggs and I went to her second cousin's wedding this weekend in Port Townsend. It was a really nice wedding, and her family is really cool, but just let me say two words about the reception...

CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN



With all kinds of fruit (and Oreos®!) to dip in its chocolately goodness, I was in heaven.

Although I did manage, somehow, to get a huge blob of chocolate stuck on the underside of my plate.

Caption Contest

I can pass a kidney stone the size of a boulder...

Nano-Fascination

I'm geeky about science, so I found this site to be really interesting. Also, despite my recent rants about Flash and separate windows, it is very well done and engaging. (Web designers, take note: this is what Flash is for.)

Start at the level of our everyday lives, and burrow down further and further into the nanoworld to see how things work at Nano Journeys.

After you pick your language, click the suitcase to load the "journey" window.

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is House of Mayhem.

See the original image here.

Brain Food

Dammit! The zombie brains plates are sold out!

Activity Corner

• Crazy German novelty glasses that come in denture, pissing dog, and pissing guy. That last one is great for apple juice.


• Take the game Rollercoaster Tycoon, and after you'd played through it the normal way a few times, try to design a ride that will cause the most catastrophic accident.


• 10 geeky tricks for getting out of bed in the morning.


• Twitter throughout history. Cute.


• Retro steampunk watches. Check out their vintage watches, too.


• If you cut a lot of bread, convert your cutting board into a bird feeder.


• Crazy USB hubs: cow and fish bones.


• A behind-the-scenes look at the life of a criminal mastermind's henchmen in Billy Dare, Boy Adventurer.


• Smell to the power of nerd: Star Trek fragrances.


• Another new Nintendo game: Wii Breakfast.


• Printed on what resembles packing tape, they're disposable sunglasses.


• Roadkill scarves.


• You may know about the stone statues of Easter Island. The statues are called Moai and are formed into groups called Ahu. The island's native name is Rapa Nui. Explore some cool virtual 360-degree views of Rapa Nui's Ahus.


• 11 "modern" technologies that are way older than you think.


• Cool glow-in-the-dark dancers.


• What's your chance of getting a tapeworm? Mine is 9%.


• The world's most-covered songs.


• The text is pure industry-speak, but the picture is a priceless study in usability: Grandma's remotes.


• Fat cat versus cat flap.


• Giant freshwater stingray HOLY CRAP!


• Why wear out your brain solving sudoku puzzles, when you can have your iPhone app solve it for you?


• When is having a blog with only two posts, and with eleven years between the posts, news? When you're old-school rock band Faith No More.


• You'd think it was fake, if there wasn't an "official" website. The International Jurassic Park Erotic Fan-Fiction Writer's Association. Dinorotica, indeed!


• Ok, it's a Coldplay video, but it's the best puppet show evar.


• The Beatles' Penny Lane gets the literal treatment.

Friday Game

Do you know how to juggle? It's pretty hard to learn, and it's not something you think would make a very good game. But this one uses three balls, and a paddle with Breakout-like characteristics (you know, the ball hits the right-hand side of the paddle and goes right), to do what it can to simulate the juggling experience. Or, at least, make the game as difficult as possible. See how well you can do at Juggler.

No Rock, No Paper

Found in the kitchenette.

Apparently, the spot next to the hot chocolate and cider mixes is the scissor graveyard. I guess the office supply room was too far away. Or, the dropee thought he/she needed to prepare for a packet-opening emergency.

The Bus Chronicles

This morning on the bus, the lady across the aisle from me was eating. Popcorn. From one of those bags you pop in the microwave. I wonder if it was fresh or left over.

Then, after finishing the bag, she proceeded to put on her makeup. On the bus.

Must have been one wild party.

News Flash

Dear web designers,

Stop using Flash for your menus. Please. Every web designer that uses Flash to have menus and other navigation selections fly out automatically and obscure the content on their site that I'm actually trying to see should be forced to work as birthday party coordinators at Chuck E. Cheese. Every weekend, and three nights a week.

Stop using Flash intros. Nobody cares but your marketing department. And if you don't put a Skip link there, you should be forced to clean bedpans at a nursing home. Every night of the week.

Stop resizing my browser window. Or the worse sin, opening a new, special-sized window with no menus or controls. Last time I checked, I was using my browser to visit your site, not be owned by it. Browser hijackers should be locked in a room and forced to visit every single page on Myspace. And GeoCities.

Don't make me take away all your black clothes. Just quit it. And get the hell off my lawn.

Yours truly,
--NT

Reverse in Videogames

Imagine a videogame, and then tell its story from the end to the beginning. Take, for example, Donkey Kong:

"Pauline takes her boyfriend to the top of a building. There, she dumps him for a giant ape, and the heartbroken plumber climbs down the scaffolding."

Can you add one to the growing pile of comments? Check out the videogame plots in reverse at Backgames.

It's a Marvel

These are in a hallway near my office. Just another reminder of how cool the place I work is. Original prints, on canvas, framed, and signed in gold ink marker by Stan Lee himself.





I would love to have these.

Caption Contest

Hmmmm....left or right cheek for my next tattoo?

The Kodachrome Kronicles

Step 1: Find old cameras that still have film inside of them.

Step 2: Develop the old Kodachrome film into slides.

Step 3: Pick out the ones that have people in them.

Step 4: Scan 'em in and post 'em on the web.

Be prepared to spend a lot of time checking out these old pictures from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and their amazing color quality, at Mango Falls.

(I looked through them all, secretly hoping I'd see someone I knew.)

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner by default is DK.

See the original image here.