Tuesday, May 31, 2005

There's juggling, and there's juggling...

Pop quiz, hotshot. Which juggler would you rather see perform?

Exhibit A:

Billiard ball "juggler", and I'm using the term loosely here. Ooh! Careful Billiard Ball "Juggler"! You might drop one of the balls! Oh yeah, that's right. The balls never leave the surface of the tab...zzzzzzz...huhwhat? Sorry, I dropped off for a minute there. (via Cynical-C)

billiards VS. tomcomet

Or Exhibit B:

Tom Comet. A guy who

a) Is the World Record Holder for chainsaw juggling
b) Can juggle three propane blowtorches spitting out huge flames
and
c) Balances a running lawnmower on his face while heads of lettuce are thrown into the revolving blades creating the world's most dangerous salad?

Yeah, that's what I thought you said.

Friday, May 27, 2005

I bet you think this plate is about you, don't you?

Vanity plate shows drug formula via Obscure Store


vanityplate Vanity license plate maker

Pretty extensive vanity plate list.

Ted Ford wrote the book "America’s Funniest License Plates: The Baby Name Book for Your Car". A few of them are listed in this article.

Monday, May 23, 2005

Me, I loathe the ha'penny

Of all the things to hate with the burning intensity of a thousand suns, you would think that the mere existence of dimes would be, to put it kindly, pretty far down on the list. Tell that to I Hate Dimes guy. (via Gadgetopia)

Hey, there are worse things than dimes, buddy. At least they're not Romanian leu.

Personally, I think we should pit the I Hate Dimes Guy in a cage death match against the Save The Penny people.

Call me captnqwerty

"It's the wild colour scheme that freaks me," said Zaphod whose love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight, "Every time you try to operate on of these weird black controls that are labelled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up black to let you know you've done it. What is this? Some kind of galactic hyperhearse?"

The walls of the swaying cabin were also black, the ceiling was black, the seats - which were rudimentary since the only important trip this ship was designed for was supposed to be unmanned - were black, the control panel was black, the instruments were black, the little screws that held them in place were black, the thin tufted nylon floor covering was black, and when they had lifted up a corner of it they had discovered that the foam underlay also was black.

"The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" by Douglas Adams


face-profile

Though the makers of the 100% blank Das Keyboard claim to cater to übergeeks, it seems like typing teachers (do such people even exist anymore?) could use these in their classrooms to teach students how to type without peeking at the keyboard.

Heck, while we're streamlining the keyboard, it's just a hop, skip and a jump to simplifying the mouse, too!

(via The Presurfer)

Test your mad keyboardism skillz with a typing test and a ten-key test. Here's how I fared:

typingtest

tenkeytest

If you fared worse than you would have hoped, you can create an account there at Learn2Type.com and get some free touch typing lessons. Me, I think this dog may be too old to learn this new trick.

Friday, May 20, 2005

Tattoo you? No. Wall? Yes.

SWTbeforeSWTafter

Next time you're in a hotel room, take a peek behind the artwork. You may be in a room with a SWT (Secret Wall Tattoo). And if you're not, you could always create your own.

May I suggest a classic?

possiblebeforepossibleafter

(via Cool Hunting)

Can't turn you loose

A couple months ago I posted about "packrats", people who can never throw anything away. Meet another member of the tribe, Crazy eBay Mom.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

I Spy

Ever wonder what other people search for in The Internets?

SearchSpy is a feature on several different search engines, and it shows you in real-time what other people are searching for. All are offered in family-/work-safe Filtered Mode and the all-out anything-goes Unfiltered Mode, where you can be amazed at what a perverted lot your fellow Netizens really are.

Dogpile SearchSpy
Excite SearchSpy
WebCrawler SearchSpy

searchspy

Google doesn't have a similar feature (unless you count Google Zeitgeist), but there are plenty of Google Hacks out there to keep yourself occupied.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

I'm also a smoker. And a midnight toker.

joker

Dotpattern is home to a playing card joker collection, matchbook cover collection, and other ephemera. It's amazing what people collect.

The World Web Playing Cards Museum

Story of a guy who visited a yard sale and ended up with some girl's collection of thousands of Canasta cards.

History of playing cards

Sadly, Marcel Marceau did not make the list...

Show this article from Filmcritic.com on The All-Time Top 100 Voices in the Movies to your friends and coworkers. Depending on their age, you'll be pretty much guaranteed to hear their really bad impersonations of either
a) John Wayne (#8)
b) William Shatner (#60)
or c) Christopher Walken (#3)

(via Boing Boing)

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Music to (sort of) cuss by

Bad boys of Rock that are still well-mannered enough to not quite swear in their band name.

By the way, these types of expressions are referred to as "minced oaths", which allow people to feel like they're cussin' even when they're technically not. A pretty exhaustive list can be found at Wikipedia. Some of them are pretty obscure/ridiculous. I mean really. Jason Crisp? Muddy Funster? Who says these?

And I never suspected that Sylvester The Cat's famous catchphrase "Sufferin' Succotash!" (or more accurately, "Thufferin' Thuccotash!") meant... "Suffering Saviour" (or rather, "Thuffering Thaviour!")...

DAG

Dang

Frickin' A

Geeez 'n Gosh

Zounds!

Crimeny

Shoot

Blast!

Rats!

Jeez Laweez

F-Word

Bleep!

Know thyself

I took the What is your World View? Quiz. Looks like I am an Existentialist.

(via Sarcasmo's Corner)


You scored as Existentialist. Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility.

Existentialist

69%

Modernist

69%

Postmodernist

63%

Materialist

56%

Romanticist

44%

Cultural Creative

38%

Idealist

38%

Fundamentalist

19%

What is Your World View?
created with QuizFarm.com

Tell us how you really feel...

You know, not everyone loves the Star Wars franchise or its creator, George Lucas. But a few examples:

I hates Lucas! I hates it forever!

Why Star Wars Sucks

Rewind: A Heretic Speaks — 'Star Wars' Kinda Sucks

78 Reasons to Hate Star Wars Episode I

Why Star Wars Sucks


50 Reasons Why Jedi Sucks
. Reading this article, you might get the feeling that these guys don't hold Ewoks especially dear to their hearts. You would be oh-so right.

Speaking of Ewoks, actor Warwick Davis was one of the little people who played an Ewok in Return of the Jedi. During breaks in filming Jedi, assistant director David Tomblin made a short home movie called Return of the Ewok starring the sforementioned Davis. The original film seems to have been lost, but there is a website with the plot and a number of stills from a poor-quality video dub.

Finally, Tim "I kinda liked the Ewoks!" Jablonski alerted me to this swell Star Wars Character Guide.

starwarsguide

Monday, May 16, 2005

I've got you... or something... under my skin

fork_xray

Emergency Room X-Rays of items children have swallowed.

New type of X-Ray that gives a 3-D picture of the human body. (via Boing Boing)

Is it clean?! You could eat off my keyboard!

I mean, there's cookie crumbs down by the spacebar, some peanut butter by the left Shift key and, uh, I think that's a piece of a Gummi Worm jammed between the K and L.

The worst foods to eat over a keyboard

dirty_keyboard
Keyboard detailing Before and After pics (click 'em to enlarge)

Another keyboard gone bad

Can you throw your keyboard in the dishwasher?

As long as you have the vacuum out, could you catch my CPU as well? It's a mite dusty. (1, 2, 3)

And bring Smokey in here to take care of this monitor...

Friday, May 13, 2005

Multitude Plethora 3

Words can't describe (well, they sorta can) the overflowing amount of mp3-ish goodness that is all rolled up into this one little post at The Tofu Hut. This guy literally collected hundreds of links for MP3 blogs and even seperated them out into categories. Nice.

All This Useless Trivia

For the die-hard Elvis Costello junkies, Elvis Costello Mystery Cover has a wealth of Elvis concert lists, a "Mystery Cover" of an EC tune with updates 3x/week plus a boatload of links to Mr. C's covers elsewhere on The Internets.

The Elvis Costello Cover List is an embarrassment of riches, data-wise, listing every single song The Big E wrote that was ever covered by another band, no matter how obscure.

Not a fan of Declan McManus (a/k/a Elvis Costello)? Sheesh! You must not be, if you didn't know that! And yet you thirst, thirst like a shipwreck survivor who has been adrift at sea for weeks with no water and nothing to eat but Pringles for more mind-clogging factoids about who lifted which sounds from what band for whatever song? Slake away! Visit the-breaks.com and check out the menu on the left to find an exhaustive catalog of sampling in music, broken down by the source of the sample and genre in which it was used.

This confirms that James Brown has officially been sampled by each man, woman, child and vertebrate on the face of the planet.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

My name is Nick

What's the story with Mob nicknames like Tony "The Ant" Spilotro and Vincent "Chin" Gigante? (via Kottke)

More Mob nicknames (no explanations, though)
The Top 20 Least Impressive Mafia Nicknames
Texas Hold 'Em Poker Hand Nicknames
City Nicknames
State Nicknames
Of course you're dying to learn Glass Insulator Nicknames
Railroad Nicknames
Baseball Nicknames
Serial Killer Nicknames
Robert E. Lee's nicknames
Bingo numbers-calling nicknames
Amish nicknames

Do you come from a land Up Over?

C.J.
But... wait. How... Where else could you put the Northern Hemisphere but on the top?

SAYLES
On the bottom.

C.J.

How?

FALLOW
Like this.

The map is flipped over.

C.J.
Yeah, but you can't do that.

FALLOW
Why not?

C.J.

'Cause it's freaking me out.

NBC's The West Wing - "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail"


upsidedownmap

Who says North has to be "up"? The Upsidedown Map Page.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Getting your finances in shape(s)

A few different sites on the art of money origami.

shirt11

Clay's Money Origami page shows you how to make a snake, a pair of eyeglasses and this nifty shirt.

Hecht's Origami Designs has instructions on creating your own $ dragonfly and $ butterfly.

Check out the working money origami catapult and 3D Virtual Reality dollar bill rhino at Bob's Billfolds.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Movies that have hit bottom... and then started digging

IMDB presents the Bottom 100 - Voted the worst 100 movies of all time. Topping (or would it be bottoming?) the list is the classic "Manos" the Hands of Fate, of which there is an extensive and hilarious review for your readin' pleasure at The Agony Booth, my new favorite crappy-movie site. And for those of you with a little Spanish under your belt, the answer is yes, the title really does translate to "Hands" the Hands of Fate.

(via Scrubbles)

The 20 Worst Movie Titles in Hollywood History

Thursday, May 05, 2005

¡Cinco Supremo!

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Contrary to popular opinion, this is not French for "Sink the Mayonnaise".

Today at 5:05:05 it will be 05:05:05 on 05/05/05, which happens just once every 100 years. That is is happening on Thursday, the 5th day of the week means it only happens once every 700 years. Numerologists, you may put your tinfoil hats on now.

Small, but tough

Is this funny? Or is it just me?

I think I shall see nothing greater
Than poems upon a 'fridgerator

fridgemags

Create your own Online Fridge magnets

The self-proclaimed "Fridge Magnet Superstore"

Online Magnet Poetry Kits

I have one of the Magnetic Poetry kits here at work, and it used to be set up on the metal filing cabinet outside my cube. Status: currently mothballed due to uh, productivity concerns. Basically, everyone always stood outside my cube fiddling with the magnets, causing undue attention from Bosses, Honchos, Bigwigs and general Powers-That-Be towards my neck of the work-woods.

When it was installed on the fridge at home, my brother-in-law constructed the magnetic poem by which I still judge all other poetic efforts:

Though you rip a repulsive butt fluff I will always whisper sweet language to you

*sigh*

Note the alliteration "rip/repulsive" balancing the lovely assonance of "butt/fluff". Iambic pentameter? Anapestic Tetrameter? I dunno... Any Info-Nation readers with a background in verse are welcome to write a short treatise on the beauty of its inner structure. I'll be sure to post any and all critiques.

And finally, Someone keeps stealing my letters is kind of like Magnetic Poetry. In the same way Full-Contact Golf is "kind of like" golf.

imwithstupid

Monday, May 02, 2005

A duck walks into a bar...

...Animal control is promptly called, the duck is then taken to a near by park and released.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

I imagine it would take a great many. Mice would find it difficult to reach a ceiling light fitting, and would individually lack the strength or dexterity required to turn a bulb in such a socket. Even if you had enough mice to lend their strength to such an endeavor, the chances of them having the intelligence and wherewithall to perform suich a complex activity is really quite low.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lots more jokes with realistic endings

(via Growabrain)

Hoist, meet Petard

Collision Detection has a great summary of the not-so-bright hacker duped into launching a furious attack against... his own hard drive.

But the egg is not my son

We already knew that Mr. Jackson was a freak of nature. What we didn't know was that nature sometimes gets its freak on, too.

Video of a manakin moonwalking.

manakin