Hangman is comin' down from the gallows and I don't have very long

Depending upon when you are reading this and which time zone you happen to be in at the time, I hope you're having or have had a fine Halloween.



Here's an enjoyable little (Flash) game of spooky Hangman. (via Look At This)

Technorati tags: games, hangman, Halloween

Monsters of Rock

In the spirit of the upcoming day, here are a few tunes

Austin Lounge Lizards - Hillbillies in a Haunted House

G Love & Special Sauce - Night of the Living Dead

L7 - Pretend We're Dead

Ministry - Everyday Is Halloween

Nouvelle Vague - Bela Lugosi's Dead

Technorati tags: mp3, Halloween

That truck is stacked, and that's a fact

Overloaded Vehicles



Lords of the Logistic

Technorati tags: overloaded, logistics

How To Be A Halloweenie

I guess this is what we can look forward to if/when global warming finally kicks in and pumpkins become extinct... (via Cynical-C)


Nine Worst Halloween-Party Costume Ideas
Or, "How to Make Everyone Stop Liking You"



The Top 10 Worst Halloween costumes of 2006

Technorati tags: Halloween, costumes

“Duh, duh, chick, chicka-chickaaah – oh, yeahhhhhhhh"

Won't you please enjoy the following flashback-fest, replete with Gobs'O'YouTube® video. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... The Top 40 Music Moments in Film History

(thanks for the link, David "Hey, they missed one!" P.)

PS. “Duh, duh, chick, chicka-chickaaah– oh, yeahhhhhhhh" would be #31 “Oh Yeah,” by Yello from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Technorati tags: film, music

Oh, and remember: next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day.

Think you're an Office Space fan? Try this super-tough 100-question Office Space Quiz. I thought I'd do alright on this but ended up getting only 58%.

Technorati tags: Office Space, quiz

From the fine minds who brought you "Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam"...

The 50 Worst Game Names Ever, where Yo! Noid! placed 24th. (via Boing Boing)




Speaking of ill-conceived advertising mascots, won't you please explore The Orphanage of Cast-Off Mascots?




Even more advertising mascots, from the obscure (Commander Whitehead, Hy Finn) to the beloved (Quisp! Mr. Whipple!) to the despised (I'm looking at you Fanta Girls).

In other mascot news, McDonald's Drops 'Hammurderer' Character From Advertising.

Technorati tags: advertising, mascots

Eat Like A King The King

"Well I don't know if he was alive when I started work, but he was sure dead when I finished" - Coroner Jerry Francisco, after conducting autopsy on Elvis Presley

It's no secret that Elvis loved him his sammiches.

Some of the recipes compiled at The Ravenous Guide to Eating Like Elvis are (in)famous, such as His Pelvisness' Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich, and some might not sound too agreeable if you're a Yankee (e.g. Fried Okra, Fried Squirrel).

The one that takes top honors in the Elvis Bad Foods Hall of Fame would have to be Fool's Gold Loaf. The King would regularly eat two of these bad lads for dinner. Here's the basic version:

1 jar peanut butter
1 jar strawberry jam
1 pound of crisp-fried bacon
Hollow out one loaf of Italian bread, slather on the PB & J and add the still-warm bacon.
Serves 1 Elvis (or 8 mortals)

Does that sound like a lot of calories? Is the surface of the sun a little warm? The recommended daily caloric intake for an adult male is around 2,000 cals/day. An adult Asian elephant has a normal diet of 50,000 calories per day. Each Fool's Gold Loaf delivers a heartstopping 42,000 calories each. And Elvis ate two. A night.

Technorati tags: Elvis, Fool's Gold Loaf, food

Life on >>>

Inspired, no doubt, by this guy's project where he took a photo of himself everyday for 8 years and turned it into a video, here is a shameless ripoff from some guy named Ben. Sure, it takes place over the course of only one year(?) but in its defense, a lot more stuff happens... (via In4mador!)


Technorati tags: YouTube

Strengthen Your Abs In Just 30 Minutes!

... as for your unbridled enthusiasm for sniffing strangers' butts, though, you're on your own.


From the description over at YouTube:

This is a mesmerizing and frightening video. It's a word-for-word parody of Susan Powter's first workout video, featuring poodles and a crazy poodle-woman. Absolutely surreal. It was made by Nagi Noda for Panasonic. It was part of 10 films they made for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

At least it's not, you know, weird or anything. (via J-Walk)

Technorati tags: weird

May I ask you for spending a little moment in looking at some of my interesting facts?

"Looking for a full creative person for your team? ... Deep Studies on movies. Prepared for the totally unexpected advertising and Selling Blasting"


"I am getting to my goal, slowly but surly."


"I have been on Sabitcal for a while." [Editor's note: Side effects of Sabitcal may include dizziness, brain cramps, and bonehead spelling errors. Ask your doctor if Sabitcal is right for you.]

Cover letters from hell, as collected by one Chicago advertising agency.

Technorati tags: cover letters, job hunting

This is low, even for you

Simpsons fans know full well that Montgomery Burns' is very, very old (104+?) and very, very powerful (in one episode he is seen entering his Social Security Number of 000-00-0002. An annoyed Burns mutters, "Damn Roosevelt").

Actually, the way it is set up, the lowest possible SSN is 001-01-0001. And President Roosevelt didn't really get it. Find out who got it and why (you'll need to scroll down towards the bottom of the page).

Of course Montgomery Burns is also very, very rich. How rich? Each year Forbes magazine compiles Fictional Fifteen of the top imaginary moneybags, where this year Monty places a very respectable fifth with $8.4 billion, right behind Lex Luthor ($10.1 billion) and just edging out Scrooge McDuck ($8.2 billion).

Sweeping it again this year is The Big Guy, Kris Kringle with a hefty $100 billion tucked under the mattress. It probably helps when you run a sweatshop in one of the world's most inhospitable, inaccessible locations (no walk-offs! no surprise OSHA inspections! no union reps!) with immortal employees (no health care! no retirement pensions!) who actually ask to be paid in wooden horses.

Technorati tags: simpsons, Montgomery Burns, Social Security Numbers, Fictional Fifteen

Five words

Animated. Short. Beautiful. Disturbing.

Rabbit. (via J-Walk)

Technorati tags: animation, creepy

When you gotta go, you gotta go

Skin diving with gas tanks you stole from a dentist.
Renting a basement apartment in Venice.

Wearing clown shoes while walking through a mine field at night.
Getting a life-size tatoo of someone your height.

(from Paul Gilmartin's brilliant audio poem "Undignified Ways To Die")

Thanks to growabrain for cluing me in to the fascinatingly tragic/tragically fascinating Unusual Death. Take this tidbit culled from a Melbourne, Australia newspaper:

A dwarf nicknamed Od has died in a circus accident in northern Thailand. According to the Pattaya Mail, he "bounced sideways from a trampoline and was swallowed by a yawning hippopotamus which was waiting to appear in the next act. Vets on the scene said Hilda the Hippo had a gag reflex that automatically caused her to swallow." The vet said it was the first time the hefty vegetarian had ever eaten a circus performer. "Unfortunately, the 1,000-plus spectators continued to applaud widely until common-sense dictated that there had been a tragic mistake". (Melbourne Herald Sun - July 16th, 1999)

Another one would be the bizarre incident in the summer of 2003 involving the pizza delivery man who robbed an Erie, PA bank wearing a bomb collared around his neck. He told police at the scene he had been lured to a remote site under the guise of a pizza delivery, abducted by a group of strangers and was forced to commit the robbery or else they would explode the device. The bomb exploded shortly thereafter, just minutes before the bomb squad arrived.

I recalled hearing about this when it happened three years ago and am not exactly surprised to hear that the case remains unsolved. Additionally, you can also read this much more in-depth article on what has been dubbed The Erie Collar Bomber case. I see that America's Most Wanted also ran a profile on the case and provides some further info, pics and video. Worth a look.

Technorati tags: unusual deaths, Brian Wells

Thinking outside the gourd

Learn how to carve ultrarealistic 3-D jack-o-lanterns



I link to ExtremePumpkins.com every year right about this time and this year is no exception. Here are the winners of his 2005 carving contest. This one is called The Aliens Pumpkin.

Technorati tags: Halloween, pumpkin carving, jack-o-lanterns

and counting...

The US population is going to reach something of a milestone sometime this month when it will cross over the 300 million mark. You can watch as we get ever closer to the mark at this US Population Clock put out by the US Census Bureau. As I type this Thursday night October 12th at 11:49pm Eastern, the population stands at 299,966,761. With our population growing at the current rate of one every 11 seconds, it looks like we should hit the big number about 4.2 days from right now, which by my calculations should put it sometime in the early morning hours of Tuesday, October 17th.

Worldometers provides dozens of other "clocks" including world population (currently at 6,597,307,701 and growing), the number of lightning strikes this year (2,461,999,785 and growing), countries in the UN (192 and holding) and many others.

Breathing Earth shows in real-time birth and death rates in each country as well as their rate of emission of carbon dioxide. Since I launched it a few minutes ago, it tells me that 728 people have been born on Earth, 290 people have died, and 120,000 tons of CO2 have been emitted.

Technorati tags: population, Breathing Earth

True to form, he tripped over the pearly gate

Michael Mosey, known in some circles as "Scotland's Unluckiest Man" has shuffled off this mortal coil to try his luck elsewhere. Here's a snippet of the litany of boo-boos Mr. Mosey (and his wife, who was no slouch in the accident department herself) suffered, as culled from the writeup at Blog of Death:

The former engineer fell out of bed, into a pond, off a horse and through a glass coffee table. He fractured his ankle and his back, and once broke his right leg by tripping over a puppy. He even ended up partially blinded after drinking a shot of black market vodka.

Michael was married to an equally unlucky woman. Frances Mosey once broke both of her legs when she tumbled into a 6-foot hole in the road that lacked any warning signs. She purchased a motorcycle and fell off of it on her first ride, breaking her shoulder blade. While recovering from a hernia operation, the former telephone operator suffered a fractured skull when a ceiling tile fell on her head. She allegedly died on the operating table during routine procedures in 1963 and 1996, yet was revived both times. Her most unfortunate experience, however, occurred when she accidentally cut her finger off while making dinner. Doctors were unable to reattach it because her dog ate the digit.

Technorati tags: death

Slanguage

World War I slang

1920s slang

Apologies in advance for the difficult-to-navigate site here, but Slang in the Great Depression is a flat-out doozer, Jack.

Hard-boiled slang

1950s slang

Diner slang

Prison slang

English (U.K.) slang

Tons of Wikipedia slang links compliments of Wikipedia

Technorati tags: slang, language

Tony! Toni! Tone!

Phase Toy is a charming and relaxing little music toy. Click on a cell to have the sequencer play its corresponding tone, which is somewhat remeniscent of those toy rainbow-colored xylophones we all played with when we were kids. Click as few or as many cells as you like. Unlike randomly hitting keys at say, a piano, you really can't make a jarring offkey sound.

Clicking the plus (+) and minus (-) buttons changes the number of tones that get played before repeating, which has the effect of making various musical patterns come into and out of phase, hence the name. This find came via Jay is Games, and I would encourage you to check out the comments there. Some of the readers shared their own compositions that you may just want to try out. Feel free to share any masterpieces you create with the rest of us. The notation that seems to work best is like this (for the random little ditty above, for example):

Bar 1 - 2534
Bar 2 - 104201045
Bar 3 - 160310400435
where 1 through 6 correspond to low through high tones and 0 means no tone selected.


And speaking of tones, here are a few more for your listening pleasure:

Tones on Tail - Go! - Tones on Tail was a side project for a couple of members of Bauhaus. The band really became a going concern when Bauhaus fell apart in 1983. Allmusic Guide provides a good analysis of the song.

"Go!" became a massive hit in New York clubs and elsewhere, its giddy main shout sampled by Moby for his own breakthrough single of that name, covered by Brainiac, and more. The song itself deserves all the attention it got, kicking off with one of the peppiest distortion bass lines ever recorded. Brisk handclaps and a quirky percussion loop lead into Daniel Ash's merrily gooned-up chant of "Ya ya ya ya ya ya!," and while occasional sudden halts let the title word sneak in around the side, there's not much more to it.

Rustic Overtones - Feast or Famine - This cut comes from the Portland, ME seven-piece outfit's 1998 debut effort Rooms by the Hour.

The Spongetones - She Goes Out With Everybody - Channeling early Beatles and The Dave Clark Five, The Spongetones produced some fine early 80s powerpop.

Technorati tags: music, toy, creativity, mp3Tones on TailRustic OvertonesSpongetones

See you in the funny pages

Does anybody else remember these B-list comics fram back in the day? Growing up as a kid, it seems like we always had lots of products from the Harvey Comics stable, such as:

Richie Rich - Just how did the Rich family come into all that money anyhow? Oil? Real estate? Drug cartel? Did Grampa Rich possess compromising negatives of a secret tryst between Cornelius Vanderbilt and J. P. Morgan? All I know is that between them and Scrooge McDuck, there seemed to be a lot of swimming and/or bathing in money.




Casper the Friendly Ghost - As if this comic was laugh-deficient enough, you do realize that a kid had to die in order for this premise to work, right?



Sad Sack - Kind of like Beetle Bailey except without even the benefit of the occasional hotness of a Miss Buxley.

And then there were all the "Little"s
Little Dot
Little Lotta - Because it's always fun to mock the morbidly obese.
Little Audrey
Little Lulu

Sweet fancy Moses, was every prepubescent girl height-deprived back then?! I have no memories of wanting or buying these comics, they were just... there.

I think we must have read them, my sister and I, but I can't recall much about the stories. Actually, the only one I can clearly recall is the one where the Richie Rich family traded all their wealth in for a single $1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bill or some such. Of course, the wind blew it away and the rest of the comic was Richie chasing after it. No mention was made of the utter impracticality of actually using the bill. I mean, not only will 7-Eleven refuse to break a fifty, they can't even open the safe, if you believe the sign on the door. Hell, most days the counterperson can't count back correct change from a dollar. Good luck buying a Diet Pepsi Gulp with something bigger than the GDP of the planet.

So in effect, the Rich family basically became like one of those guys at the bar who claims that, gosh, would love to buy the next round, but all he's got on him is a $1,000 bill.

Hmm, maybe that's how the Rich family got so rich.

I wasn't much of a traditional comics reader. I didn't avidly buy Spiderman, Superman and so on. Comics I do remember actually enjoying circa early/mid 70s included:

MAD (or any of the numerous MAD artist releases, stuff by Don Martin, Al Jaffee, etc.)
Ripley's Believe it or Not!
Horror comics, but I am having a hard time remembering any of the titles. Tales From the Crypt, maybe...

Technorati tags: comics, harvey comics

Pictures of Matchstick Men

What will half-a-million matchsticks, fifteen gallons of carpenter's glue and a couple thousand hours of time get you? An amazing replica of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. One bit of advice, though. Remarks about seeing if the fireplaces are functional are not taken by the exhibit guards in the humorous spirit in which they were intended. And I've got the taser marks to prove it.



Clever little matchstick puzzle games (Flash). I managed to solve far solve, uh, let's see... zero of them.



These kinds of photos are always interesting to me. This Flickr photoset of ballistics includes this one of matchsticks. The entire photoset includes crayons, a bar of soap and more.

Technorati tags: matchsticks, puzzles, flickr, ballistics