The Last Page Visited

Webcomic Extravaganza: Order of the Stick

2009-12-22T08:24:00.001-06:00

It wasn't until after I started this series that I realized these first two I've already talked about. XKCD is a really well-known webcomic by geeks and non-geeks alike. Order of the Stick follows on the same string of having a simplistic art style but is more story-telling than the episodic XKCD.
To date this strip has 695 pages out already (as of December 17). Yes, instead of a single line of 3 to 4 blocks like XKCD, you get a whole page every update. Unfortunately this translates to less regular updates. The artist, Rich Burlew, was pretty good about updating multiple times a week for awhile there. Then some books of previous strips started getting published, he started a second strip that I'll highlight later, and he does go to conventions on occasion. This all leads to little hiccups in the regular updating schedule now and again.
Recently he's been back to normal, but he makes no promises about when he'll update again.
Since my last update the characters have changed quite a bit. They've all gotten new skills, new outfits, the art's improved a little more, and they're in a whole new environment. This is one of the comics that, when I read the most recent one, makes me want to go back and re-read
the previous 694 of them. They're very interesting, and follow the story of a band of 6 adventurers (and a raven) as they try to thwart the evil plans of an undead mage named Xykon who seems to be out to conquer the world or destroy it if he can't conquer.
And my favorite character in the whole lot is Belkar. He's a halfling ranger with a few points in Barbarian and a couple other points in the Chef (Gourmet) skill. It doesn't get into the story too often, but it's the little things that I find interesting. According to some folks I've talked to, it can be enlightening or disturbing to find out who someone's favorite character is. Belkar's one of the disturbing choices. Even though he's currently partied with the good guys, you get the feeling he could swing the other way if a deal he thought was personally awesome came around. Let me know who your favorite character is, if you actually take my recommendation and start reading this gem of the web.

Webcomic Extravaganza: XKCD

2009-12-17T07:46:00.004-06:00

I figured an easy feature to do would be to provide links and short descriptions about the webcomics I'm currently following. First of all, let me state that you have NO IDEA how many webcomics there are out there. Sure, you might have a good guess. Then you remember that there are artists in Japan and Korea and probably some in Europe that are drawing up a storm and throwing it on the web too. I've seen one of the Korean sites where a bunch of artists have series in progress. WOW.
That's a lot of comic distraction provided for free on the web.
So let's start with one I've covered before, XKCD.
http://xkcd.com/
One of my previous mentionings was here, http://dumbtechgeek.blogspot.com/2009/05/xkcd-on-serentiy.html , when the artist included Serenity characters in a series. And yes, I just noticed in the link that I initially had a typo in the title. No clue if it's still there.
This one's still a fun one after years of reading. It releases new one every Monday/Wednesday/Friday. It's currently on its 676th comic (that's as of December 17). The one downer about this series is I don't want to include a lot of pictures. Not just because it means more work for me going and finding good ones to copy, but also because some of these artists get sensitive when their stuff is copied without permission, even if it was someone hyping what they're doing and gets them a couple
more fans.
Anyway, XKCD is almost cooler because its LACK of effort. It deals strictly in stick figure comics, and usually has computer science topics. Sometimes there's romance jokes or science terms, but even if you don't get the jokes (which I don't on occasion) they're still humorous.
And you can never forget the mouseOver text on these things. You'll have to read fast on some of them, but the artist always includes an extra little punch-line in the text that appears when you hover your mouse over the comic strip.

California child custody case sets legal precedent

2009-12-12T07:15:00.000-06:00

A seven-year old boy found himself at the center of a Alameda County
courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who
should have custody of him.

The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge
initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with California child
custody laws and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained
to the highest degree possible.

The boy surprised the court when he revealed that his aunt beat him more
than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the
judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried
and said that they also beat him.

After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning
that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the
judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who
should have custody of him.

After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child
welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Oakland
Raiders, whom the boy firmly believes are incapable of beating anyone.

The Internet Is...

2009-12-08T21:30:00.000-06:00

I Feel It Needed To Be Said

2009-12-07T17:00:00.000-06:00

In response to an article posted here, I made a long-winded comment. I'm
sure it'll cause some stir, but I think each point needed to be said.
Feel free to read the article here before addressing my comment:
http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2009/12/07/do-women-have-an-equal-chance-in-
science/

My comment:

Just 15 women in the history of the Nobel prize, and this year adds 3

more? Either this was a very good year for women in science, or the
Nobel committee is making politically correct decisions on top of
awarding good science. I don't know myself because I don't pay attention
to these awards ceremonies and the people that were in consideration that lost to these ladies.
I will say giving an award to a President before he's actually done
anything speaks toward the possibility of a PC direction on the committee's part.

As for the point of the article, I'm sure the job market could be more
flexible with women who have had kids or are pregnant. But like all
things funded, results are required by deadlines. Having people working
part-time means you would wait up to twice as long for the results,
which might not be what the people paying for the project want to do.
I'm not saying the results wouldn't be equal or better than someone who
worked on it full-time, just that the results would obviously take longer to reach.

From the last paragraph it sounds like Alfred Nobel hosed the
foundations with the requirement to put all the money is safe
securities. There was nothing safe about any securities in the past
couple years, and they could've weathered the storm better if they had
managed their money differently.

The House On The Right

2009-12-02T08:37:00.000-06:00

That is how I would do Christmas lights. Ya know, if I actually did them
at all.

Black Friday Fun

2009-11-27T05:19:00.000-06:00

This picture reminds me of one of the zombie movies where they flood the mall the people are crowded into.
This year I decided to maintain my sanity and stay at home. Actually I went to work for half the day until a blistering headache tore my head apart. Then I came home and stayed home.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

2009-11-09T13:15:00.000-06:00

I feel this way at work more often than I'd like.

Video Games and Facing Controversy

2009-11-08T10:09:00.000-06:00

The End Is Nigh

2009-11-03T17:00:00.000-06:00

Girl Scouts

2009-10-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

This is the scariest motivational poster I've seen yet.

Need Some Motivation? Here You Go

2009-10-26T08:54:00.000-05:00

Now THIS is a wedding gift

2009-10-21T16:34:00.000-05:00

Terminator: How It Should Have Ended

2009-10-06T08:20:00.000-05:00

For Fans of Mario Kart

2009-10-03T09:52:00.000-05:00

How did we miss this??

The Great Hot Dog Dilemna!

2009-10-01T14:37:00.001-05:00

This guy is brilliant.

College Hippies EVERYWHERE

2009-09-21T22:58:00.001-05:00

Steven Crowder does it again, this time with a visit to UC Berkeley, which unfortunately closely depicts many of today's public universities across the United States.

Pesky Accents Confusing You??

2009-09-14T08:49:00.000-05:00

Weird Al Rules

2009-09-09T07:15:00.000-05:00

Weird Al's recording again. This time (I don't know why), he's releasing his videos directly to the Internet. YouTube specifically. Well one of his most recent videos was so awesome, I felt it needed to be shared here. But for some reason (I don't know why), Al's disabled me directly embedding the video. So here's a link to watch it. Here's a teaser: any of you folks 'wise' enough to remember the Match Game? Well one of the hosts of that show was Charles Nelson Reilly. This is a tribute video to him.
CNR by Weird Al Yankovic

Simon's Cat New Video: Fly Guy

2009-09-07T17:24:00.000-05:00

The Government Can!

2009-09-04T07:56:00.000-05:00

This makes me want to laugh and cry at the exact same time.

What's Left

2009-09-02T12:46:00.001-05:00

I talked to a couple friends and went to Game Xchange yesterday, and the results were surprising and depressing.
I came back from the game store with $87 in store credit, all the Game Gear stuff, both Game Boys, the Game Boy Color, & 2 broken N64 controllers.
Oh, should mention that Evictor is buying (almost) all my Gamecube stuff. One game that Tasuki's Hunny Bunny (goofy name, but girl likes farming simulations) wants is going to her. Still have a memory card, Animal Crossing, and Ultimate Spiderman willing to go to a good home.
Oh, and I can only use $50 of that store credit towards Wii system or Wii stuff. The other $37, since it was from 'old' stuff, has to be used to purchase other 'old' stuff. But luckily Gamecube games are listed as old in the store. So I'll have to see what they have and hopefully find something I didn't already own that I would like to play on the Wii.
Thank God for backwards compatibility.

iPhone Stalker Edition Commercial

2009-09-02T07:49:00.000-05:00

How could I have ever doubted the awesomeness of the iPhone??

My Full Game Collection

2009-08-31T20:32:00.006-05:00

I'm rushing this one (2 Monday posts, omg!) just because I have it down and this is a great way to catalog things. Here is my full game collection that I am soon to trade in. If you let me know before I trade it in, I might be able to sell you some stuff cheap-like. Comments, people!
Gamecube System
3 memory cards
3 controllers
1 wireless Wavebird controller
1 game carrying case (12 games)

Games (Total: 16)
Legend of Zelda: Master Quest
Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
Baten Kaitos: Origins
Battalion Wars
Ultimate Spider-Man
Harvest Moon: Magical Melody
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life
MarioKart: Double Dash
Pikmin
Pikmin 2
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Lord of the Rings: The Third Age
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Super Smash Bros. Melee

Viewtiful Joe

Nintendo 64 System
3 controllers
1 memory card1 N64 transfer pack (connects gameboy games)

Games (Total: 13)
Starfox
Super Smash Bros.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Perfect Dark
Ogre Battle 64
Mario Golf
Mario Kart 64
Mario Tennis
Diddy Kong Racing
GoldenEye 007
Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits volume 1
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Pokemon Stadium

Sega GameGear System
1 Carrying Case (holds system, battery pack, 12 games)
1 power pack
Games (Total: 8)
Sonic Blast
Sonic Labyrinth

Sonic Triple Trouble
MLBPA Baseball

Super Columns
X-Men
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie

2 Original GameBoy systems

1 GB battery pack
2 Carrying Cases
(one holds a GB system, 6 games, and booklets)
(other holds a GB system, batter pack, and 8 games)
2 Connector cables

Games (Total: 13)
Pokemon Blue
Pokemon Red
Pokemon Yellow
TetrisTetris 2
Kirby's Dreamland
Kirby's Dreamland 2
WWF King of the Ring
MonopolyLemmings
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (the ONLY one I owned and never beat)
Dr Mario
Ducktales

GameBoy Color System
1 GBC battery pack
guidebook for both LoZ Oracle games

Games (Total: 3, but system also plays all GB games)
Warlocked
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons

GameBoy Advance System

1 battery pack
1 Connectivity cable
1 Carrying Case (holds 12 games and system)

Games (Total: 11, but system also plays all GB & GBC games)

Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand
Donkey Kong (classic)
Golden Sun
Golden Sun: The Lost Age
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
Ultimate Card Games
MarioKart Super Circuit
Super Mario Bros (classic)
Super Mario Advance

Advance Wars
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town

I feel a touch nostalgic. You can literally see the chronology for my entire childhood and youth in these games. That is, if you can get the systems in the proper order

How One MIGHT Go About Getting Free Songs And Videos

2009-08-31T10:33:00.000-05:00

Let's face it, there is a TON of stuff on the Internet.
You might see a funny video one day, and 3 weeks later someone says something that reminds you of that video. Wouldn't it be great if you had that video downloaded to your machine, so you didn't have to scour YouTube again trying to remember the exact title?
Or say a new hit song is out and you love it so much you want to listen to it over and over? Songs that are stuck in my head seem to only leave if I listen to the song in question 5-10x in a row. Then I'm sick of it for awhile and don't catch myself humming it for a couple weeks.
Just maybe a friend of yours with a camera was recording pedestrians slipping on ice outside your dorm building, and he grabbed your likeness and posted it online (true story). He might not leave it up forever, and you'd love to add it to your Facebook for all your loved ones to see.
Well these are all possible. There are a ton of tools out there that'll download videos from YouTube and YouTube-like sites. When this idea first popped in my head to try, I found an extension to Firefox that does the job. Firefox has since taken a second fiddle to my new main web browser, but that's for another post entirely. The extension is called Video DownloadHelper. All you do is go to the URL of the video in
question, and the icon starts spinning. Click on it, and it shows you alist of videos it can grab from that page. You click on it and tell it where to download to, and away it goes. This works on YouTube, Vimeo, and numerous other video sites.
But wait, that doesn't fix everything. YouTube videos are typically stored in FLV file format. My computer doesn't like that format. Most of my videos are WMV or AVI. Well along comes a program called Format Factory. You select one video, a bunch of videos, or an entire folder,and it'll convert all of them to your video format of choice.
I did say something about listening to songs, didn't I? Music groups have the darndest time with YouTube. Any fan can play their song from the CD or radio and lip sync to it and throw it out there. If their managers aren't searching regularly for it, their music gets out there and out of their control very quickly. Format Factory comes in handy yet again. It can convert that same video (or group of videos, or folder of videos) to MP3s or numerous other audio formats. So if you just like the
song in the background of a video, grab it and listen at your own discretion without worrying about having an Internet connection and finding the video again.
Let me state it this way: I found out that I have the capability to do this, but I don't do it very often. I have a couple other ways I use to hold videos for a period of time to share with others, and this isn't always my cup of tea. Plus, it's always better if you like what a particular artist is making to go ahead and invest in their continued music-making. I'm not advocating piracy or short-changing talented people. I'm just saying, with a process like the one here, you can watch and share that cool video at your leisure. And saving it to your Desktop might just remind you to visit their site and see if they have anything new.
Pleasant web-watching days to all.

Toaster Oven FAIL

2009-08-26T10:44:00.000-05:00

Yes, I particularly love how my toaster oven can make coffee...

But then again, my toaster oven doesn't do any of the regular toaster oven activities. BAD TOASTER OVEN!

Lucky

2009-08-24T08:13:00.000-05:00

A woman's husband had been slipping in and out of a coma for
several
months, yet she had stayed by his bedside every single day. One day,
when he
came to, he motioned for her to come nearer.

As she sat by him, he whispered, eyes full of tears, "You know
what?
You have been with me all through the bad times.

When I got fired, you were there to support me.

When my business failed, you were there.

When I got shot, you were by my side.
When we lost the house, you stayed right here.

When my health started failing, you were still by my side.

You know what?"

"What dear?" she asked gently, smiling as her heart began to fill with
warmth.

"I think you're bad luck."

And You Thought You Had Troubles Waking Up

2009-08-19T10:20:00.000-05:00

So not a morning person, but at least I don't have it THIS bad.

This Site Gave Me a Good Laugh Today

2009-08-14T09:53:00.001-05:00

Zombie Preparedness

Dub FX "Love Someone"

2009-08-12T07:22:00.000-05:00

This was shared a few weeks back on a tech site I follow. He's got other videos on YouTube and Vimeo that are all awesome. This guy's got a new fan in me.

Dub FX 'Love Someone' from Ben Dowden on Vimeo.

If you want to monetarily support this Australian rap techno awesome artist, his site is here.

Geek Love: Post-it Style

2009-08-05T08:35:00.000-05:00

Preach It: Morgan Freeman Laying Some Sense On

2009-07-29T08:37:00.000-05:00

New Zealand's Nice This Time of Year

2009-07-22T07:15:00.000-05:00

Here Was My Weekend Fun

2009-07-20T19:15:00.002-05:00

Mom's hard drive got all confusticated on her laptop.

So I used a 4 gigabyte memory stick and a Ubuntu Install CD to access the hard drive and copy her critical files to the memory stick before we bring the laptop into the shop.

Gosh technology is fun.

A Sing-Over of a Classic Song

2009-07-15T09:38:00.000-05:00

Laptop Battery Philosophy

2009-07-13T08:07:00.001-05:00

A few Sundays ago at a church social, I had a middle-aged lady ask me
for some technical advice. Now I've learned through my years as an IT
student (and now graduate) that most people really have no idea what it
is I actually learned and what they figure falls under my umbrella as
'technology stuff'.
I've had questions as simple as, "can I take the mp3 file off of this CD
and put it onto another CD as an audio file, so that it'll play in
cars?" All I could do with this one was hold back laughter. I'm not
trying to be rude here, but that's one of the first technical things I
learned to do, and I learned it in 8th grade. So it surprised me when a
grown man asked me this like it was some secret knowledge.
Toughest question to date: "How involved is it to allow laptops to
connect to a private network from my office? Do you know what all
technological specialties it would require? Can you do it/ how much
would you charge?" Wow. Well I can tell you it takes someone smarter
than I am. And depending on how you currently have the network
configured is going to decide how difficult this project is. It could be
as easy (read: not secure) as putting a hole in the firewall (which I've
done), or as complicated as scrambling ports and configuring email
servers as well as shared storage to be available in the outside world.
But I digress.
The question the middle-aged lady asked me was, "If I have a laptop
that's 2 years old and the battery won't charge anymore, is there a
possibility that the battery is already bad?" Now, let's get the obvious
out of the way: if the battery's not charging, there's almost certainly
wrong with it. It could be the problem I had with my first laptop, in
that the power connector isn't working properly. It's not the battery's
fault if there simply isn't any electricity flowing to it. Or, like
EVERY laptop battery they have created thus far, the law of diminishing
returns takes over. After some amount of time (could be 4 years like
mine was, could be 1.5 years like a friend of mine's, could be longer
than both of these), your battery will stop holding a charge as well as
it did. Most salespeople try to push buying a second battery for this
very reason, and because they can make more money that way. So it's to
be expected after some duration that, even if it's just for power
reasons, you'll need to upgrade your laptop to a new one or hope they
still sell batteries for your model.
But wait! There's a small glimmer of hope. If there wasn't more to this,
why would I have even spent my time writing this post? I have devised a
proven method of extending your laptop battery just a little more than
the average person's. It's not overly complicated, and it'll take you
almost no time at all. Here it is: don't use your battery when you don't
have to. BAM!
What does that mean? That means your laptop exists in 3 states at any
given moment.
STATE ONE: You have it unplugged from the wall and the battery's in and
are utilizing the portable nature of your laptop to go around where
there aren't plug-ins. Of course the more you do this, the faster your
battery dies. I'm not saying you shouldn't do this at all. After all,
you bought a laptop so you could have this option in the first place.
Just know what it is you're doing when you do it.
STATE TWO: You have it plugged into the wall, with the battery in, and
the laptop OFF. This is called a charging period. This is where the
power coming from the wall flows directly into the battery to charge it.
After your battery is fully charged, change to state three.
STATE THREE: You have it plugged into the wall, with the battery OUT,
and the laptop ON or OFF. See, if the battery is fully charged and you
continue to leave it plugged in, it turns into a vampire on your
electricity bill. It keeps drawing power and running it thru the
battery, thereby bringing about death all the sooner for your innocent
little battery. And if you have your laptop ON to use it, then the power
typically flows from the wall, thru the battery, and out to the system
to run the current operations. I typically did this very thing with my
first laptop, where I used it with the battery in and it plugged into
the wall, and was caught off-guard when the battery started dying on me
earlier and earlier.
Now you do have to analyze how you use your laptop before state three is
comfortable for you. If your like my dear mother and like to sit on the
couch and move around with it plugged in, chances are the cord will
inevitably pop out. If you don't have the battery in, that means your
laptop just turned itself off due to no power source. If that's your
modus operandi, so be it. Leave the battery in. But don't say I didn't
warn you when your battery can't hold a charge for more than 10 minutes.
No, I'm not exaggerating. 10 minutes is what I've heard from lots of
people it whittles down to before they give up and buy a new system.
Pleasant battery-lasting day to all.
And remember, you can always do what these bright folk did when the battery finally dies.

Home Schooling Support

2009-07-12T21:51:00.003-05:00

I know a number of people who follow my blog (and I probably don't know some of you who are also in this group) that were home schooled or know kids that were home schooled. I've seen some kids that had socializing problems, but they seriously seemed to be 'that type of kid'. You can go to school from K-12 and on, but if you didn't talk except when necessary until you were 5 even though you COULD, you're probably not going to be a very social adult.

And no joke about the number of programs these kids get involved in. I've never seen such a long list of extra-curriculars! I certainly wasn't anywhere near that involved in my community or socializing with my peers in my personal time.

Anyway, the reason I brought this up is because a blog I follow written by Richard G. Williams Jr. wrote a lengthy, well-informed, and interesting article about the many pro's of teaching your children at home as he did. It starts out as a response to someone else's article, but he has done a lot of research in support of this issue.

Almost as interesting as the lengthy article itself is the comments exchanged between Richard and the author of the article he's responding to.

If you get some time on your hands and want a very interesting read, click here.

Oh, it also has a comment about how South Korea has recently begun developing a thriving home schooling community. Yay internationalism!

Naruto 455: They're Giving Out Sharingans Left & Right Nowadays

2009-07-10T12:13:00.004-05:00

So Danko's making plans to start traveling to the Kage conference. He
sends some of his minions to find Kabuto. He then selects his two guards
that will protect and accompany him to the Kage conference. They demand
that no one wear masks, so these 2 creepy looking dudes take off their
Anbu masks. Danko tells them they can do what they like with arming
themselves, trusting their judgment. He then tells one of them (they did
name them both, but didn't say which one was whom) to order some people
to watch Naruto. It's not that he doesn't trust Sai, but just in case.
Also, Naruto is NOT to leave the village.
Speaking of the over-active ninja, his face is severely jacked up. The
Cloud Ninja woman (Karui) is redefining butt-whooping all over him. And
he stands there and takes it. Finally as she swings again, Sai steps in
and blocks it. She asks why he's interfering and he has a flashback. He
was asking Kakashi why Naruto and Sakura were so loyal to Sasuke even
though he's a missing-nin. Kakashi told him he knew about Sai being sent to spy on Naruto.
Karui was just about to swing as Sai, when Omoi interrupted her. He told
her that she wasn't going to get any information out of Naruto. He
seemed like the type that stuck to his word, and he likes that about
Naruto. Just then their leader-lady Samui showed up and asked them what
they're doing. Karui looked embarrassed that she'd been beating someone
up. Samui said she needed Omoi and Karui's help to transcribe all the
information on Sasuke down, then she wants to take it back to the
Raikage. Naruto says he wants to meet the Raikage and explain to him why
he shouldn't go after Sasuke. Samui tells him that he shouldn't go near
the Raikage while he's heading to the conference. She's actually worried
for the Raikage, because she'd been hearing whispers about Naruto being
super-strong and that he should've been the one promoted to Hokage.
Sai takes Naruto off to be bandaged up. He suggests they call Sakura,
but Naruto doesn't want to have to explain the injuries to her. Yamato
and Kakashi are there. Naruto tells them he wants to go after the
Raikage. Yamato recommends against it, because Naruto's just lucky his
seal didn't break all the way when he let 8 of the 9 tails loose.
Then Naruto drops the bombshell. He saw his dad. Kakashi explained that
the 4th must have left a bit of his energy in Naruto in case of
emergency. Naruto informed them that the masked guy (Tobi) was really
Madara and he was behind all of this, including Pain. He was probably
even manipulating Sasuke the same way. Kakashi asked if the 4th said
anything else to him. Naruto smiled thinking of the fatherly comments
his dad made.
Kakashi tells Sai to go tell the Hokage about Madara being behind the last attacks. Then he tells
Naruto that he and Yamato will help him find the Raikage.
We then flash to Danzo and his two bodyguards. Some other ninja jump out
of some water nearby, and Danzo says something about finally getting
some exercise. He tells his bodyguards to leave the attackers alone,
he's going to handle them. Then he pulls back his bandages over his
right eye to reveal... THE SHARINGAN. *Cue dramatic music*
I wonder who he stole that from, and who all knew he even had it. Chances are his inside ninjas were aware of his power, else they wouldn't follow him so loyally. I hope Kakashi and Yamato are successful
in helping Naruto get out of the village. They will have to be ultra-sneaky, or pick a fight with other (misguided) Konoha ninjas.
Makes me wonder how far Danzo's ninjas would go to keep Naruto in the village...

No Excuses

2009-07-08T07:52:00.000-05:00

SQUIRREL!!!!

2009-07-06T10:36:00.004-05:00

Disney and Pixar have struck again, this time with a gemstone of a film
simply titled "Up". In this stunning film for all ages, a cranky old man
and an overeager Wilderness Explorer fly to South America in a house
suspended by thousands of helium balloons. On their adventures they meet
up with Dug, a talking dog, and a giant bird affectionately named Kevin.
I truly didn't know what to expect when I went to see this film. I had
heard early critics of the movie show concern that Pixar might alienate
children by having the main character be an old guy with real-world
problems. But I must say (despite not checking with any of the kids
leaving the theater) that I think they pulled it off beautifully. As my
future wife stated, "In the way that Shrek had jokes for kids with dirty
jokes going over the kids' heads for parents to laugh at, Up had jokes
kids and adults could laugh at and serious moments adults could connect
with." Expect if you have a heart to at least tear up during this film.
Typically it takes things like the end of Saving Private Ryan to get me
to shed a tear. This film did it with way less killing.
But the funny parts! Oh it had so many hilarious moments. The title of
this post was inspired by the dogs you probably saw in the previews and
their fascination with squirrels. Since they have collars that allow
them to speak English, you get to hear how they think and their ability
to be INSTANTLY distracted by movement out of the corner of their eye,
which is always a squirrel. On a side note, while squirrels are
adorable, they are also very evil. I just did a search for "squirrel
knocks out power", and got back over 81,000 results. They apparently go
on kamikaze missions to knock out the electricity in entire
neighborhoods. One story actually had 2 squirrels in neighboring states
killing power within an hour of each other. Which would imply to me
they're organizing... Be watchful.
But I digress.
I hope you guys enjoyed this movie as much as I did. It's a great
combination that I hope many other movie-makers start taking advantage
of. We keep hearing about how we're being desensitized by violence on TV
and in video games, and even I appreciated being reminded that there is
a heart still beating within.
"A time to laugh and a time to cry." Ecclesiastes 3:4a

Click here to see the official trailer. Unfortunately they decided to disable embedding, so I can't just paste it in here. SORRY. Also, future wife stated plainly "Up's way is better than Shrek's way."

Naruto 454: Picture Tutorial of Village Leaders

2009-07-03T17:58:00.006-05:00

This week's volume was mostly an introduction to the different Kages as they head to their meeting from their respective villages. So let's go through some pics and make note of them all.

First one introduced to us is the Tsuchikage named Ōnoki. He's the little dude on the right. He's the leader of the Village hidden in the Rocks. He's very old, but very stubborn. He tries to carry his own bag, and throws his back out. Then the big dude behind him picks the guy AND his bag up and says they're ready to go.

Next we have the Mizukage, the leader of the Village hidden in the Mist. She'd be the attractive female in the center of the picture above. She's one of only two female Kages currently known, the other being Tsunade. Her name's not mentioned, but as we'd expect from anyone coming from this village, she's a little crazy. The big bodyguard on the right told the kid on the left to act like a man. Just saying the word 'man' set her off. Apparently some people have been telling her that she needs to marry a good man, and she's sick of it. She walked up to the big guy and said with a smile "Shut up or I'll kill you". The kid, to his credit, has apparently been promoted to one of the seven swordsmen of the mist. We all remember (or should) Zabuza, an early bad guy in the Naruto series who also held this title.

Last to be shown (since we already know the other two) is the Raikage. He's the leader of the Village hidden in the Clouds. We saw him before when his brother Kirabi (the host of the 8 tailed beast) fought and was supposedly captured by Sasuke and his team. He's crazy strong and likes to break things when he gets cranky. He seems to be upset they haven't heard word back from the ninja team they sent to Konoha about why Sasuke attacked his brother. He was hoping to hear something before heading out for the meeting.

Last but not least, remember this crazy chick shown above. She's one of the three ninjas from the Cloud Village sent to Konoha. She's... a little cranky right now. She was shown shoving Naruto into a wall demanding he tell her information about Sasuke. Naruto, in an effort not to perpetuate the chain of hatred that feeds the ninja world, refuses to rat out Sasuke in any way. She wants to know how they should deal with his lack of sharing. Naruto says "hit me all you want". So she starts wailing on him, and he lies there and takes it. Sai is watching this, and not helping. Knowing him he's probably just trying to figure out why Naruto's so devoted to Sasuke.

Oh, then at the end some Anbu are reporting to Danzo about their attempts to track down Anko (I didn't even know she was missing) and Kabuto. Danzo's concerned Kabuto knew about him keeping in touch with Orochimaru, and he also says he wants to know about Orochimaru's experiments. They may be helpful in fixing his right arm and right eye...

Gosh I hate Danzo. After Orochimaru did all that human experimentation, all Danzo can think about is "well, let's not waste that. fix me at any cost!" What a turd.

Oh, and crazy-girl above's name is Karui. Omoi is the other dark-skinned ninja that was asking about Sasuke. He's just standing there while she wails on Naruto.

Hope someone appreciates me typing these up when I can. These posts are a pain to spell-check. It highlights every ninja name and ninja village and ninja term. VERY tough to sort through.

FAIL

2009-07-02T07:54:00.001-05:00

Family Guy Fun: Bird Is The Word

2009-07-01T08:49:00.000-05:00

Thank you Hulu for publishing all these youTube videos. Maybe one day I'll actually visit you site. Maybe.

Yea... This'll Make Up For Not Posting

2009-06-30T15:46:00.000-05:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

I'm now using Google Voice!

2009-06-28T15:24:00.001-05:00

It'll take awhile before I can give it a truly fair trial run. Also, my review of the service will be limited since I only have control of one phone line. Otherwise I have to inconvenience my parents or my office, both of which is a tough thing to do. But I'll say what I can when I can.

Family Guy Fun: Electric Man

2009-06-24T09:45:00.001-05:00

I have a guy at work that does this all winter. Without a one-sy (sp?) too. Thank God.

Naruto 452: A Desire to Punch New People

2009-06-19T07:12:00.004-05:00

No surprise whatsoever: Naruto opposes the decision to allow Sasuke to be killed. He and Sakura want to run off to talk to Danzo about the order, when Kakashi tells them to calm down and NOT talk to him. Anything they say will just get them put under a microscope of suspicion and potentially thrown in jail. Oh, and a VITAL detail learned is that the Hokage doesn't become a permanent one until the Jonin vote on it. It would be so nice if the smart older ninjas that comprise the Jonin saw how Kakashi is so much better as a Hokage than the plotting and scheming Danzo is. *sigh*
Flash to Danzo talking to Sai. And you're right, we haven't seen Sai in quite a while. Basically for those new to the Naruto world, Sai is a ninja about Naruto's age that was placed on the same team as Naruto to fill the spot left empty by Sasuke. He has the ability to draw things, then animate them to real life with his chakra. Typically they're just black ink things, but he can do different animals or ropes and uses them intelligently. Most importantly, he's an agent of the "Foundation", which is Danzo's group of ninjas that he withheld from fighting when the Pains attacked because he wanted Tsunade to get hurt or at least discredited as Hokage for failing to protect the village from destruction. What a jerk. But I digress.
Danzo tells Sai to spy on Naruto, reporting immediately if he does anything unusual. Sai asks Danzo what he plans to do with Naruto. Danzo pretty much tells him that he has to handle him with care because he's a hero now and could sway the Jonin vote if he wished. But after becoming the permanent Hokage, he doesn't plan on treating Naruto with the kid-gloves he thinks Tsunade handled him with.
Sai's out walking wondering if he can actually relax, when Naruto and Sakura run up to him. They ask him to tell them about Danzo. He says he can't. They get upset, until Sai shows them a seal placed on his tongue. Not the paper kind, more like the tattoo kind. He says that to protect the Foundation, Danzo places it on all the members so they can't talk about him or the operations of the Foundation without immediately becoming sick and paralyzed. That way, even if tortured, they can't speak the secrets. Of course this is the ninja world, where people can actually enter your mind to play tricks on you or to acquire your knowledge. So if that really holds up, I'd be surprised. Sai defends Danzo, saying that even if his methods are secretive, his intentions are truly what's best for the village. Sakura tells Sai that Danzo's ordered the killing of Sasuke.
Upon mentioning Sasuke's name (a few times), we zoom out to see the two chatty ninjas from the Cloud Village (I really should learn their names soon if they're going to keep appearing...) pointing a sword at Sakura and saying "Tell us everything you know about Sasuke and the Uchihas". Immediately Naruto flies into defensive mode. He throws Sakura back, knocks the sword out of the way, grabs hold of the other one and makes a clone to grab the other ninja's sword too. The Cloud ninja are impressed, then Sakura goes to punch them and the female Cloud ninja kicks her. They separate, and start talking.
The Cloud ninja inform Sakura, Naruto, and Sai that Sasuke attacked their master (Kirabi, the leader of the Cloud Village's brother) and has joined Akatsuki. SHOCK. END. And next week there'll be some color pages. Yay for color!
All this excitement going on, and no one knows yet that Sasuke is actually on his way to the village. I wonder if there's going to be some showdown between Sasuke's Team Hawk and the Leaf Village in which Naruto's going to have to choose between following orders or sparing Sasuke. He'll probably spare him, and have to deal with a bunch of chatty consequences. Something like "never visit the village again. we strip you of your headband" or some such. At least until Danzo dies. That would be dramatic stuff, wouldn't it.

Yes, I've Had That Kind of Week

2009-06-17T09:38:00.001-05:00

Anybody else think this just looks like fun? Not the dancing with zombies part. Just the hitting random people part.

Text Services Collection

2009-06-15T08:19:00.002-05:00

I've done a chain of text services posts lately, and thought it might be helpful to drop links to all of them in a single place. It's the advised thing to do when you have 'series posts' like that. So here we go.

Google SMS

Mosio

Evernote

Google Calendar

Buxfer

I've actually got another service I've been previewing recently. It was initially just for the purpose of telling everyone about it on here. As of late though, I've actually started enjoying the service it provides. I'll do a post on this one in the near future, but thought I'd give you a teaser. Anyone care to guess what service I'm talking about? Anyone else have any services they use regularly I didn't cover? We are talking texting here, so if you've got a data plan, count yourself special and feel free to brag. We poor people will stick with our messaging-only plans, thanks.

Best Venn Diagram Ever

2009-06-14T09:11:00.000-05:00

Naruto 451: Policy Change

2009-06-12T06:43:00.003-05:00

Rebuilding has already begun. Carpenters are pouring in from other places to help with the rebuilding of Konoha. Some ninja are worried that it is going to take forever to rebuild the village. Then Yamato does one jutsu... and the buildings on a single city block pop out of the ground! That wood jutsu of his is some awesome stuff, that he can just do rows of buildings like that. The other ninja standing around are all like 'hey, we can rebuild the village really fast like this', and Yamato's sweating and panting. I have a feeling he's going to be pushing himself for the next little while to help save on the carpenter fees.
Meanwhile, Naruto and Sakura are talking. Naruto's sad because he's not sure if he's going to get a chance to talk to Tsunade again. Sakura thinks he's selfish for not trying to comfort her. Then some familiar faces approach them: Inari and Tazuna. They haven't been seen since way back when Team 7 was fighting Zabuza. The little kid with the hat's grown up some, and according to Naruto the old man looks even older.
Kakashi walks up. Inari tells Sakura she's pretty. Then Tazuna asks an obvious but uncomfortable question, "Where's Sasuke?" Naruto quickly tells him that Sasuke and he had a fight, but Sasuke should be back not too long from now. Tazuna asks if there was some love triangle tension or something (What is this, a teenage drama? This is ninja-land, not Dawson's Creek). Naruto's like "umm, no". Inari and Tazuna walk away and get back to work. Which is good, because the whole conversation they kept cutting to guys wood-working in the background.
Naruto tells Kakashi and Sakura that now that he's lost Jiraiya, the one father-figure he has had while alive, he thinks he can understand Sasuke's pain better. He believes now that he can relate, Sasuke may actually listen to what he has to say, and come back to the village. He looks forward to fighting Sasuke, and hopes the result of the fight is Team 7 laughing together again.
Flash to Sasuke and his team running to Konoha. He has a mental flash of himself talking. He's going on about destroying anyone who stands in his way. Cranky lil emo kid.
Apparently Konoha has a team of people that manage some hawks. They use these big beautiful birds of prey to send messages to distant lands and people. They get a note in saying that a meeting of the Kages (leaders of the 5 main ninja villages) is being planned.
The ninjas from the Cloud Village talk to a Konoha ninja to find out that Tsunade's unconscious. They go to visit her, and Shizune offers to take the message. They want to give it to whoever is in charge until she wakes up... when Danzo walks into the tent and informs them all he's the Hokage now. He reads the message and mentions something about Sasuke. I'd guess it was the Cloud Village telling them that Sasuke was seen trying to capture or kill one of their important people.
Kiba rides up to Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi shouting. He tells them that Tsunade's been replaced by Danzo, and that Danzo has just given permission to all Konoha to 'dispose of Sasuke as a missing-nin. END
I knew it. Danzo was going to do something to disconnect Naruto's plans from that of the village. I wonder if he'll just go with it, planning to capture and not kill Sasuke when they meet, or he strikes out on his own to handle it without any village interference.

Japan.... WTH??

2009-06-10T08:11:00.000-05:00

If you find this offensive, I'm sorry. I just needed to warn you all what's going on from our island friends on the other side of the big pond.

We should all simply be counting our blessings that the song doesn't get stuck in our heads....

Taco Tuesday Special: Who Likes Chicken Tacos?

2009-06-09T08:18:00.002-05:00

I've got to say, chicken tacos can be amazing when you're in the mood for them. Also, I'm always in the mood for them. They're fairly healthy and scrumptious.
Recently I stumbled upon the perfect recipe for chicken tacos. I used it once, and it was pretty good. Then I lost the recipe somewhere. So this past weekend I had to make it from memory. Here's what I came up with.

Turn on a crock pot to high. Add 2 cups of salsa, 1 packet of taco seasoning, 2-4 cups water (will explain shortly), and 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts.

My chicken was straight from a bag out of the freezer. The reason I have the variance in water added is because I don't think it was in the original recipe at all. I'm new to cooking with a slow cooker, but I'd think it would help if the chicken strips were completely submerged. So I added about 3 cups of water and the chickens were swimming. Potentially the less water you add, the more concentrated the flavoring and therefore the stronger the tastiness.

After I stirred all that up and got the taco seasoning dissolved, I went to chopping. I like chopping with a knife. Sure the 'chopper' in my kitchen is noisy and convenient, but holding a sharp knife in your hand with intentions to slash something up just seems like fun. What did I chop this last time? Half an onion and a whole bell pepper. I think the recipe called for green. Green would have been good too. But I didn't have green at my house. So I added an orange bell pepper.

Let this cook for 4 hours or so. Hey, you were the one who put the stuff in the slow cooker. Did you expect the chicken to defrost and absorb all that flavor in 15 minutes? Impatient people... The first time I made this I threw it all together in the morning and set it on Low. Then I went to work. By the time I was ready to eat that evening, it was all done.

Obviously you don't want to eat uncooked chicken. So find the largest piece in the pot, cut it in half, and check to be SURE that it's the right color inside. You don't want to mess with uncooked chicken. One time I used my teeth to rip open a freezer bag of uncooked chicken, and you know what happened to me? I got lectured by my mother for 10 minutes about something called salmonella. It sounds like a female fish, but apparently it's a deadly disease found on uncooked chicken. I thought it was just in peanut butter crackers, but apparently this disease 'gets around'.

After all your chicken's cooked thru, take it out of the pot. Now use a fork and knife (or fork and fork, or whatever) to shred it into tiny pieces. I assume you have taco shells with your shredded cheese of choice ready and waiting? Of course you do. Add the chicken on top of the cheese.

My finishing touch? Use a slotted spoon to scoop some yummy peppers and onion out of the crock pot and put those on top. I'm a plain-and-simple taco eater. If you like lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, sour cream, or shrimp on your tacos, feel free to add them. I'm not trying to limit your taco creativity.

Now I wrap them up and eat them just like that. You might want to nuke them for a couple seconds in case your chicken approached room temperature during preparation.

Now I know there were a little bit of leftovers when my family of four got done eating. Like one piece of chicken, juice, onion and pepper bits, for example. Well unbeknownst to me, my father found the juice to be quite tasty. I guess the salsa and chicken mixture had formed a kind of soup. So the next day he tore up the chicken, added it to a cup of the juice, and had at it! A whole different angle I didn't even consider using those ingredients for. Obviously your amount of water added would decide whether this was too salty or too bland for a good soup. Enjoy!

-adapted from WikiHow

Naruto 450: Up Down and All Around

2009-06-05T07:29:00.000-05:00

I'll just go scene-by-scene on this one instead of over-generalizing. Too much important stuff going on.
Naruto is walking away from his meeting place with Nagato when he falls forward from exhaustion. Kakashi appears in front of him and catches him, then begins running back to the village giving Naruto a piggy-back ride.
They get to the village and EVERYONE is cheering about how much they love Naruto. Apparently Tsunade's slug told them all what had happened. Hinata's crying with joy knowing Naruto's okay. Sakura walks up and punches him in the head for being so reckless... then hugs him and says thank you. The other villagers even start tossing him into the air!
Then a Black Ops tells Shikamaru's dad that he is needed in the conference room for a chat...
Meanwhile, the Venus Fly Trap guy goes back to report to Madara about what's happened. Madara says they'll need a new pawn to sync with the Gedo Mazo, which I'm guessing is that big thing that's holding all of the demon spirits. He also tells Kisame to hunt down the eight-tailed demon (that's the Killer Bee rapper guy from the Cloud Village, and yes I was temporarily confused).
Then we flash to the three ninjas from Cloud Village. Remember them? The leader of the village sent them to Konoha after he heard that Killer Bee was captured. I had to check to remind myself. Apparently he faked his capture and ran off to enjoy a vacation and shirking the responsibility to his village.
So they're goofing around. The guy on the team is rambling about how all the beautiful girls in Konoha are going to fall in love with him, and when he tried to leave they're all going to suggest they commit suicide together because they can't live without him. This talking frustrates the darker of his female teammates. Then they notice the big hole where the village used to be. So they go to look for someone to talk to.
Tsunade's in a coma. Naruto, Sakura, and Tsunade's assistant are hovering over her in a medical tent. She used all her reserve energy healing all the people in the village.
Then we go to the meeting that Shikamaru's dad went to. For ease of writing I looked up dude's name and it's Shikaku.
Anyway, the leaders of the Fire Country came together to talk about helping Konoha. They offer to help pay to restore the village to its former self. The village elders are appreciative. Then Danzo (that jackass with one eye covered in bandages. Also the old guy who helped cause Pain's last and biggest suffering) chips in with them needing to pick a new Hokage. The elders think it's a little sudden, but if one needs to be chosen they suggest Kakashi. Everyone likes this idea. He's smart, very powerful, fairly young (but still older than the 4th was), and he's got all the right relations. By that I mean his dad is well-known and he was trained by the 4th himself. Everyone's cool with this... except Danzo. He chips in that everyone branching away from the 3rd Hokage is responsible for all the destruction that has come upon the village and times have changed. He blames the 3rd and his students and his students' students for everything from Sasuke leaving to Akatsuki forming to Pain attacking to his hair turning white (so it seems). He volunteers to become Hokage and fix everything and restore the Leaf Village and the Fire Country to their previous levels of awesomeness... And with great surprise for all and a wry smile for Danzo, the leader of the Fire Country agrees and appoints Danzo as the next Hokage.
AAAAHHHHH! I can easily see Naruto doing something very dangerous and striking out on his own like Jiraiya did after this. Danzo and he are not going to see eye-to-eye. Being alone puts Naruto at great risk for being captured by Akatsuki. I was excited when I read they were considering Kakashi, since that was kind of what readers have been expecting for awhile now. I mean, what has Danzo even done other than living to be a really old jerk? I worry for the future of Konoha now, which is weird since it's all a fictional universe.

Sarcastic Gamer's Version of a Microsoft Future

2009-06-03T08:07:00.000-05:00

Young Conservative Anthem

2009-06-02T20:48:00.000-05:00

Movie Review: Wanted

2009-06-01T15:46:00.002-05:00

All I can say is: thanks for slapping me in the face.
This movie is another in the long line of "action-packed with very little realism" films. Do you think you could get scooped up in a drifting sports car going probably 30mph+ and not even break your lower legs? I don't. Could you be IN a train-car that falls over 100 feet and just have a few scratches to show for it? I sure as heck don't. Do you think you can temporarily suspend the laws of physics and twist a gun while shooting it such that the bullet curves around people and other objects? Yea, not happening.
Anyhow, Angelina Jolie's in it. That doesn't do a lot for me either. Morgan Freeman's in it. His character tries to be a bad-ass like he's Samuel L mother-fricking Jackson. It just sounds odd seeing the nice old guy from The Bucket List swearing. I tried my darndest to think what the main actor was in to no avail. I finally looked it up. The kid's name is James McAvoy, and he played Mr. Tumnus in The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe.
Premise of the movie is simple. The main guy, Wesley, has a boring life in which the world craps on him regularly. He has no dreams, no aspirations. He just knows he's miserable where he is. Then he finds out he's actually the son of a wicked-awesome assassin and through genetics is capable of becoming just as wicked-awesome himself. Of course he has to go thru the training. I assure you, if you thought your on-the-job training was hard, wait until you see what this kid has to do.
I actually liked the movie overall. The slapping in the face part came at the end. See, I'm aware that I'm a couch potato. It's one of my unfortunate-but-honest defining characteristics. When I watch an action movie, I know that I'm watching other people do things that I can't do. And since those 30-second training montages don't exist in real life, I'll likely NEVER be able to do what they're doing. Even knowing this, I still don't want to be reminded of it by the people in the movie. The main guy pretty much says at the end of the film "your life is as lame and pointless as mine used to be, I'm way cooler than you could ever dream of, and you're a lazy donut-munching moron". Oh, and he threw in a swear word, which meant what he said was really important.
So basically if you find yourself enjoying gratuitous violence, unbelievable action scenes, fake techniques and bullet casings, and rats blowing up en-masse, this film's for you. But after you see that one guy get what's coming to him at the end of the film, turn it off. The monologue is stupid, and you won't miss a thing not listening to it.

Naruto 449: What Is Death Anyway?

2009-05-29T06:18:00.003-05:00

Oh. My. Gosh.

This was a HUGE volume. Not as in size, but as in amount of impacting stuff that happened.

The technique Nagato uses brings EVERYONE back to life. As the '7th Pain', he has control over life and death, according to Konan. That big head that was eating people's souls earlier proceeds to spew them all back out. Tsunade's assistant is back to life. The Elder Toad is back to life. And, as we all expected might somehow magically happen, KAKASHI IS BACK TO LIFE!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Last we saw Kakashi he was talking with his dad around some campfire. We knew they were both dead, so this is some kind of after-life meeting place. Kakashi has finished his life story, and he finally gets to tell his dad he was proud of who he was, and dad extends the same to him. Kakashi's dad says he can finally move on and see Kakashi's mom. Then... BEAM OF LIGHT hits Kakashi. His dad says it looks like his time is not yet up. Then Kakashi's alive again. w00t!

Konan was very surprised to see Nagato using this technique. Beca

use the chakra it needed took his life with it. Yes, the master of life and death has died. Supposedly. Stop trying to reason out how he could restart his own battery. I don't know, and we shall see.

The Great Elder Toad that predicted one of Jiraiya's pupils would be the 'child of prophecy'? He's watching this whole scene through a crystal ball sitting with another old toad. He says it looks like they are the CHILDREN of prophecy, and that Jiraiya writing that book about the gutsy ninja who never gave up really did change the world.

So Konan wraps both Nagato's body and Yahiko's body in a paper coffin. She's taking them with her. But she tells Naruto she's not going back to Akatsuki, and entrusts Naruto with carrying on for Nagato, since Nagato trusted Naruto enough to change. Wow, what an amazing kid Naruto is. She even makes a bouquet of paper flowers for Naruto, which makes him smile. Awww.

Flash to Sasuke. He tells his team they need to get ready to go. Fish-boy asks him if he's all healed up. He says yes.... and they're heading to Konoha! END

That was a ton of stuff. The village has a giant hole in it, Naruto's learned alot about himself and the world, all of the village people that died are back to life, and a super-charged wielder of the Sharingan is on his way to start some crap.

THIS is why I read this manga, people.

The Goode Family Early Review

2009-05-28T20:16:00.003-05:00

I caught most of this show last night. I thought it was hilarious. About time we got something out there that just has fun with the wackiness of the super-environmentalist, modern-age-hippy people running around. I have a mini-version of one of these at work. If I put a can or a piece of paper in the trash can, I'm the devil the rest of the day because I didn't recycle them.

A site I visit on occasion called I Hate The Media posted their top 10 list of favorite quotes from the first episode, along with the above video. I thought the stuff was good enough to share too! Here are the quotes:

1. “We can’t shop there. They don’t even have a mission statement.”

2. Ubuntu: “Sorry I used so much gas, dad.”
Dad: “That’s okay. The important thing is you feel guilty about it.”

3. “Don’t say ‘people of color’ because that’s just ‘colored people’ backwards.”

4. “The View is on. The pretty one is saying crazy stuff again.”

5. On a bumper sticker:
“Support our troops. And their opponents.”

6. Bumper sticker on Goode Family hybrid:
“Earth First - Ask Questions Later”

7. “WWAGD? What would Al Gore do?”

8. “Attention One Earth Shoppers. The owner of the SUV is in aisle 4 wearing a ball cap.”

9. “Your mother accidentally bought two-ply (toilet paper). But don’t worry I fixed it.”

10. Goode: “If you want to have proportionately diverse staff, we need three more minority hires.
Jensen: “Why don’t we just fire three white guys. Everybody wins.”

I Would Probably Turn Off Infomercials Slower

2009-05-27T08:28:00.001-05:00

I would consider buying this product.

Ideas?

2009-05-26T07:16:00.002-05:00

Well I've written about a lot of the things I can think to write about in the last year. I have a few more ideas storming, but they vary in how much time and research is required to get them out the door.
This week there wasn't a Monday update. Sorry if you've come to expect these. Between the holiday weekend and the recent developments in my personal life (getting engaged, for example), I've found my free time that I use to write on here taken by thoughts of other things.
Anyhow, just wanted to make sure I wasn't leaving everyone in the dark. And if you happened to have any tech-related questions ("What's this Chrome I keep hearing about?"), non-tech topics, or ideas for posts, feel free to share. I have the "Contact Me" link in the sidebar that sends me e-mail, as well as the straight-up method of commenting on this post.
Pleasant web-surfing days to all.

Naruto 448: Naruto, the Natural Salesman

2009-05-22T18:31:00.000-05:00

So Nagato's still mulling over Naruto's amazing answer to bring peace to the world. He says he wants to make the difference and stop the cycle of hatred that flows the world of ninjas.
Nagato has a series of flashbacks to when he was younger and talking to Jiraiya. He tells Jiraiya a very similar thing to what Naruto just told him. It gave Jiraiya the idea to write the story "The Legend of the Gutsy Ninja". That was the book here Jiraiya came up with the name Naruto, which was so liked by the 4th Hokage that he named his son after this 'gutsy ninja'. Turns out Jiraiya dedicated the book to a former pupil of his, Nagato.
Nagato also has a flashback to when he was fighting an assassin. The ninja actually had a headband on that had a big question mark on it, so no clue what village he's from. But before Nagato killed him, the assassin was spouting about how there would be an endless wave of terrible people like him as long as we lived in this accursed world. And that's one of the times that Nagato said EXACTLY what Naruto just said.
So Naruto is reminding Nagato of a younger version of himself. He tells Naruto that he will choose to believe in him, then makes a hand-sign to do a ninja ability. END.
I don't know what move Nagato's got up his sleeve. My guess is, since he doesn't seem ultra-mobile in the big chair thing he's sitting in, he teleports himself everywhere he wants to go. So I'd think he's getting himself, maybe some Pain corpses, and Konan as far away as he can muster.
At least I'd like to think the ability is something that mundane and acceptable. I'd hate to see Naruto say all those pretty words about peace and all just to get killed out of the blue.

The Editing on this Video was a Snap!

2009-05-20T09:53:00.000-05:00

Texting Services: Google SMS

2009-05-18T09:08:00.001-05:00

There is so much power behind Google SMS that even I don't make use of it all. I actually had to make QuickNotes in my phone where I wrote all of the available options in one place so I can grab something that's useful at the right time.
What's great about this service is it's typically very fast. The average response time for me (barring being in a dead spot or something) was around 10 seconds. Now other users and myself have had problems with some of the tougher inquiries and seen a rare response time of 10 minutes or so. But trust me, those are few and far between.
If I can think how to do it, I sometimes use this before I'll try sending a question to Mosio. Don't tell them I said that though. Some of the site managers there are very anti-other-texting-services. The trick on those occasions is to know how to format it or what to ask. If I want to know how old a particular person is (say Bob Dole), I'll send a message like "web Bob Dole wikipedia" and get back the first couple lines from his Wikipedia page (Robert Joseph 'Bob' Dole born July 22, 1923). Typically they say people's full name and birth/death date right at the beginning of the page. Now if I had a data plan, this service also provides a pre-formatted page that I can see the results on, and the URL is right there in the text.
There's a way with this service to set your location, at which point you don't have to tell it where you are. If you want to know the weather, you just send "w" to the service and it'll give you your local weather. If you want to know the movies at your local theaters, just send "m" and it'll start sending you titles to choose from.
Another personal example of my using this service was when I went to pick my girlfriend up at the airport. Due to complications with weather, her flight was delayed a total of 5 hours. I looked up her flight number before leaving the house and was able to get updates quickly. It's a one-hour drive to the airport, and thanks to this service I didn't end up sitting there and waiting the whole 5 hours. That saved me on parking money, and from going insane.
Typically I use a price check when shopping, calculator when cooking to convert units, weather reports before I go bike riding and movie listings. I've also been known to get directions, check game scores, and check word definitions.
I've provided the list of things for you, and the link given takes you to the sign-up page. They even have a demo of how it looks on a phone on that page, so you can sit there and test out its accuracy. Note though that any setting for your local area (like my 'm' and 'w' shortcuts above) won't work in this demo because the Google people didn't figure out they could get your location from your IP address when you visited the page.
Happy texting!

Naruto 447: Rinnegan Be Crazy

2009-05-15T18:43:00.003-05:00

So last we saw Nagato, he was just about to snap after Yahiko died.
Hanzo orders all the ninjas to kill Nagato. They all throw their knives and shurikens at him. He repels them, exactly like Pain does later on. He then jumps up to grab Konan. Hanzo ducks out of the way, and we see why; he has laid a trap.
As soon as Nagato lands next to Konan, a bunch of those explosive labels come off the ground and start wrapping themselves around his legs. But Nagato jumps clear with Konan just in time. His legs are badly scorched, but he's gotten Konan to safety.
Now all the leaf ninjas try to jump at Nagato. He does a summoning technique which I don't think has been seen before. He calls forth that giant masked... thing. The one that Akatsuki has been using to absorb the energies of all the demon spirits when they extract them from the other people. Well this big guy immediately crushes all the leaf ninjas. Konan yells "Nagato, no, don't!", implying that she knew of this technique and its ferocity before this event.
Hanzo says that Nagato must've been behind this gang the whole time, and that the Rinnegan caught him off-guard. We see Nagato is connected to the giant summons by a bunch of those black chakra pole things. They look like they either sprouted from his back or were inserted there by the summons so he could control it.
So the giant summon lets loose a giant spirit snake out of its mouth, kind of like a tongue in that it doesn't separate from the summon's mouth. This giant snake passes thru all the remaining leaf and rain ninjas. As soon as it touches them, it takes their soul and kills them.
The snake goes after Hanzo, and Hanzo does what's called the "Body Flicker Technique", which has the ability to teleport him short distances. According to another source this technique is fairly common and well-known in the ninja world, but it's new to me.
We see a cloud of dust. You kind of assume Hanzo was gotten by the snake or Hanzo got away, because it seems the fight is over.
Back to the Present: Nagato wraps up his story-time. Naruto now knows about all of Nagato's past pain that made him how he is. So Nagato asks for Naruto's answer about how to bring peace to the world.
Naruto informs Nagato that he still hates him and wants to kill him. Nagato says, "Then let's end this." Naruto pulls Jiraiya's book out of his jacket called 'The Legend of the Gutsy Ninja'. Then Naruto tells Nagato that Pervy Sage believed in him, so he's going to do what he thinks Jiraiya would want him to do. He's not going to kill Nagato. Yay forgiveness!

I Find This Hilarious

2009-05-14T13:18:00.001-05:00

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating

How To Get Time Off Work:

2009-05-14T11:15:00.001-05:00

I urgently needed a few days off work, but I knew the Boss would not allow
me to take leave.

I thought maybe if I acted 'CRAZY' then he would tell me to take a few days
off.

So, I hung upside down on the ceiling and made funny noises.

My co-worker asked me what I was doing. I told her that I was pretending to be a
light bulb so that the Boss would think I was 'CRAZY' and give me a few days off.

A few minutes later the Boss came into the office and asked, 'What are you
doing?' I told him I was a light bulb.

He said, 'You are clearly stressed out. Go home and recuperate for a couple of days.'

I jumped down and walked out of the office.

When my co-worker followed me, the Boss asked her, 'And where do you think
you're going?

She said, 'I'm going home too, I can't work in the dark.'

Dust in the Air?

2009-05-13T07:50:00.000-05:00

Trekkies Upset New Film is 'Fun, Watchable'

2009-05-12T07:11:00.001-05:00

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Texting Services: Mosio, The Bored People Online For You

2009-05-11T09:16:00.003-05:00

Mosio is a particularly awesome online community, and the reason most people think I'm the go-to guy for random inquiries.
The way Mosio works, everyone has gone online and set up an account on Mosio.com and given them your cell phone number. After that, you send texts to ask@mosio.com, and whatever bored people are online will try to look up the answer to your questions!
Of course there can be downtimes if no one's online. But the situation I found myself in last Sunday is a perfect illustration. A friend and I were trying to remember that actor's name that plays Monk. I could easily cite 15 other things he's been in (Men in Black 1 and 2, 13 Ghosts, 1408, Galaxy Quest, Cars, Paulie, The Siege, etc), but for the life of me I couldn't remember his name. I didn't want to fret on it, because conversation was continuing and we had already switched to a different topic. So I sent the question into Mosio. Less than 20 minutes later, I randomly tell my friend TONY SHALHOUB. It was one of those times we felt retarded for not being able to think of it, but the mystery was now solved.
Of course like every online community, bad apples are destined to cause a few ripples here and there. If you phrase a question poorly you can expect a poor or mocking answer. If you ask a dumb question you can get anything from the dot (people will ignore your question, and to get it out of the top of the 'unanswered questions' list they'll 'answer' it with just a period), to the lecture about proper and polite usage of Mosio.
But you could be the answer to other people's problems too! If you happen to find yourself with some free time, you can login to Mosio and answer other people's random inquiries. They range widely in topics; Tuesday I answered a question about when Forrest Gump came out (1994), Wednesday I found out how many students go to Texas A&M (in 2008 they had 48,039). The potential for randomness is vast!
There's more to Mosio than I use personally. They have some fun things where you can get daily texts about various things, from your horoscope (they're all fake), to random Chuck Norris facts (which are all true). There's also a way if you use IM clients to route new Mosio questions to there. It also has a social aspect in that you can add people to your Qniverse. When they ask questions, you get a text message and can respond with an answer, and vice versa. As of right now I have kept my Qniverse empty (I don't know these people from Adam!). But if anyone commented on this post with your Mosio username, I'd be more than happy to add you and start building up my own Qniverse!

Naruto 446: Mean People's Names End In -anzo

2009-05-09T06:33:00.001-05:00

So Yahiko desired to get stronger so he could protect Nagato and Konan. So they approached Jiraiya after the fight with Hanzo. He agreed to hang around and watch after them.
Then they were attacked by a rogue ninja while Jiraiya wasn't around. Luckily Nagato's hidden powers awoke and helped to kill the guy.
After that, Jiraiya started training them up as ninjas. He believed that because of Nagato's eye technique that he was the Chosen One that the prophecy foretold of. See, a long time ago a monk with the same eye technique as Nagato discovered what chakra was and how it worked. He travelled the world to tell everyone, and what he was spreading as a religion eventually became the way of the ninja. But just as that monk meant the power to be used for keeping peace, Jiraiya believed that Nagato could abolish hatred and bring peace back to the world. Nagato told him he just wanted to be able to protect those he loved.
So by the time Jiraiya left them the three orphan kids had grown up. They started a gang of peace keepers, trying to use as little violence as possible to calm people down. After awhile, Hanzo took notice of this gang of youngins roaming his country. He approached them and talked with Yahiko. He told Yahiko that he was the key to uniting all the surrounding nations in peace again, and set up a meeting between Yahiko and the emissaries of the other countries.
But when Nagato and Yahiko arrived, they found Hanzo, his men, and Konoha's black ops waiting for them. Hanzo and Danzo (who was the leader of Konoha's black ops back in this time) had made a deal, it seems. Danzo wanted Hanzo's help to become Hokage (which he never did), and Hanzo wanted Danzo's help protecting his position. Hanzo had come to believe this gang was a threat to his nation, despite the fact that everything they did seemed to be to the benefit of his nation.
Oh, and as icing on the cake, Hanzo had a knife to Konan's throat. Yes, little origami girl had been captured and her life was now being ransomed. Hanzo threw a knife down to them and told Nagato he wanted him to kill Yahiko, or he (Hanzo) would kill Konan.
Nagato picked it up, but was paralyzed with indecision. He didn't know a way to protect both of his new loved ones. He couldn't kill Yahiko, but to not do it would be to sign Konan's death warrant.
That's when Yahiko grabbed Nagato's wrist and plunged the knife into his own gut. Yahiko believed that Nagato had a special fate, and he also didn't want Konan to die. So he told Nagato to protect her, and then he died.
That was Nagato's second traumatic experience. And Nagato's eyes are already activated to his Rinnegan. So, as the last page implies, I'm guessing that Nagato whoops some serious butt in the next couple volumes. I almost hope they show the fight, because I'd be amazed to see him tear down Hanzo and all those other ninjas up on the hill. I don't think we've ever gotten to see Hanzo fight, and I don't remember anyone saying how he eventually died. Oh! I just looked it up. It does appear that 'Pain', which is really Nagato, kills not only Hanzo but every friend and family member Hanzo has. I'm going to guess it all stems from this situation right here. So there you go.

XKCD on Serenity

2009-05-08T07:17:00.004-05:00

Now I know some of you out there are Serenity/Firefly fans. We all loved the adventures of Captain Mal and his gaggle of fascinating characters flying around space like pirates. It was so awesome.
Well, remember a little while back I covered XKCD? Well that guy's just done 5 strips in a row about meeting some of the gang from the crew of Serenity which I found delightful and hilarious. So to make sure you didn't miss out on it, here's a link to the first of the 5 part series. Just click Next to proceed to the others, and don't forget to hover over the image when you're done. The artist always hides a little comment or jest in the mouseOver text.
The Race, Part 1

Enjoy!

Naruto Abridged 24

2009-05-07T08:42:00.002-05:00

I figured since last Friday was a wash (and this Friday may be too, never can tell with these Japanese holiday schedules), I would throw a video out there. My fellow Naruto fans and I have been keeping track of this series since #1. They are WAY behind on the stories, but for the amount of editing it takes we all give them some leeway. Warning: some language, as well as a reference to beating puppies. Enjoy!

Beatbox Kid

2009-05-06T07:32:00.000-05:00

About 45 seconds into it.... I would pass out from lack of oxygen and wake up with a killer headache. Wait, I can't make those noises in the first place!

Watch Amazing Beatbox Kid and more funny videos on CollegeHumor

Muslim Demographics: The Truth Can Be Chilling

2009-05-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

Texting Services: Evernote

2009-05-04T08:25:00.002-05:00

I don't use this one that often. If I have reminders that aren't time-related, I can send them to Evernote and see them next time I log in there. So like 'research creation of time machine' should not get sent to Google Calendar because I don't want to schedule that type of event.
I've covered Evernote in the past, and I still think it's thoroughly awesome. I access it from the web at work, and have a desktop application on my home computers. As soon as a note is sent or typed into one of the environments, it's immediately available everywhere else. It takes text notes, pictures, and even sound clips. Heck, I've attached documents to it before, and it'll comb thru them to index words.
And that indexing is what makes it so useful for a ton of things. Currently I'm using it as a recipe collector. Now I log into it and type 'chicken', and it shows me every recipe I have that has the word chicken in it. Of course I'd have to be more specific to avoid things like 'chicken broth' or 'chicken bullion'.
So how does texting come into play? Well Evernote provides a unique email address for your account. So if a friend sends you some important news or something you should look into later, forward their message into Evernote for future processing. If you like neat houses and drive by one, snap a pic and send it in with notes or address to Evernote for viewing later. That would've been really smart back when my family was shopping for a new house. We kept getting confused which one was where after looking at so many!
Last time I used this feature was when I was hanging out at the library with a friend. My friend was busy studying school stuff, so I started looking around the library for something interesting to read. Sure enough I ended up in the cookbook section. I grabbed a couple and even located some recipes I wanted to try later. So I took a picture of the page the recipe was on, and in case the detail wasn't good enough I typed the recipe into my phone. I sent that whole thing to Evernote, and it immediately indexed it for me. It's a very handy service to have, and a great place for consolidating notes for any purpose.

Japan Celebrates Golden Week Holidays

2009-05-01T06:05:00.001-05:00

As such, the publishers of Naruto are taking a break. Hey, I don't like it any more than you do. Just wanted to make sure I didn't get tarred and feathered for not providing you with my Naruto summary.

Steven Crowder's YouTube Channel Embedded

2009-04-30T18:19:00.000-05:00

Knowing some of you wanted to follow this guy but didn't get big into 'subscribing' to people on YouTube, I grabbed his embed code for his whole channel. Now if he has a new video, it'll pop up first on this post!
Also knowing that this post will fall off the front page eventually, I'm adding this to the end of the "Loyal Commenter FAVs" post I link to in my right sidebar. See where it says "Loyal Commenter FAVs"? Well if you click on that and go to the end of the post, this box will be there! So you always know where to find Steven Crowder's new stuff. Ain't I a sweetheart?

Little Girl President

2009-04-30T14:11:00.000-05:00

I recently asked my friend's little girl what she wanted to be when she
grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her
parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her,

'If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?'

She replied, 'I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people.' Her parents beamed.

'Wow...what a worthy goal.' I told her, 'But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.'

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in
the eye and asked,

'Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?'

I said, 'Welcome to the Republican Party.'

Her parents still aren't speaking to me.

World of Warcraft Intervention

2009-04-29T08:41:00.000-05:00

This video's hilarious. Try not to let the ending ruin it for you. No nudity, I promise. Just, try to think of it from a non-Christian perspective.

Actually if you're a WoW fan you'll see the ending as the fact that playing WoW kept the guy from doing something immoral. Either way, I guess you're okay.

Text Services: Google Calendar

2009-04-27T07:18:00.000-05:00

This will be my first post in a series covering all the text services I'm subscribed to. I figured with EVERYONE (including my dear mother) jumping on the text message bandwagon, it's about time everyone knew how powerful and helpful this texting stuff can be.
I've done almost everything I can think of to harness all the power of texting that is out there. I initially did this because I couldn't afford a data plan. Now I've gotten so many text services running that it would be impractical to start a data plan since there's only a few things I'd want to do on my phone that I can't.
So let's start with keeping appointments. I utilize Google Calendar as much as I can for scheduling my own activities and even sometimes the activities of others. In fact I think I use it a little more than the designers originally intended, but more on that later.
As you can see from the snapshot, there's a lot going on here. Everything is color-coded for my convenience. I have Work as one color (yes, that says 6AM for work starting) so it's easy to see. I also have a personal calendar, financial calendar, church calendar, and the scheduled events of a few of my friends compiled into a 'friends' calendar. Those would be the ones blocked out, since I'm not big on giving away other people's information.
But the fun doesn't end there! When I had Facebook I found an application that grabbed all my friends' birthdays and added them to my Google Calendar. I have since shut down my Facebook, but it's nice to be reminded that others are getting old too. I have a To Theaters and DVD Release calendar so I know when things are out there. I have a US holiday and a Korean holiday calendars, just so I can better remember these things.
I also have a "Phases of the Moon" calendar. I don't recall why. I've spent no time as a werewolf and am not into astrology.... hmm...
The bottom part of my day was cut off in the snapshot, but I assure you my evening are by majority free according to this calendar. And I like it that way. Frees me up to do laundry, hang with friends, watch television, go to church services, eat dinner, hang with friends, catch a movie, hang with friends, play video games with friends, read with friends. Gee, when I put it that way I almost sound like a busy or even interesting person. *Giggle*
But wait! I've been yakking all this time and haven't said a word about text messaging at all! How does it factor in? Well I'll tell you.
Despite being the point of this post, I must admit that G-Cal (as I've come to call it) doesn't have the best support for texting. They could do better. But let's go over what they're doing right.
Each and every one of the events on that calendar pic has a reminder attached to it. Yes, even the Korean holidays and all those haircut reminders. Now G-Cal offers 3 different methods for reminders. One is a pop-up. I've never used this one, and I don't think it does anything unless you leave this open all day. I guess this is an attempt to imitate Outlook. But at least Outlook makes a noise. I dunno; to each his own I guess. There's also an email reminder. I guess if you kept your email (Outlook or otherwise) open all the time then that could work for you too. Or if you have one of those work Blackberries, you could tell it to email your work address, and it'd vibrate on your hip in its nifty holster.
I personally go with the SMS reminder (that's an acronym that pretty much means 'text message'). I can set it for minutes, hours, or even days in advance of the event. I can even set default reminders PER CALENDAR. So if I want to be reminded about work 30 minutes before since it takes 20 to drive there, I can do that. If I want personal events to have an automatic reminder 45 minutes ahead since I don't know how far I'll be driving, I can do that. I could even set multiple reminders for an event. So if I wanted to know a week in advance of my parents' anniversary so I could get a gift, then the day before so I actually go and get one, that's do-able.
So G-Cal sends me messages before events happen. Neato. Is that all? Of course not! I can also add events and check an entire day's schedule from my phone. Say someone tells me about a music performance I should go to tomorrow at 7pm at Starlight theatre. It's expected to last 2 hours. Easy as can be, I send a text to an address provided by G-Cal saying "Music Performance tomorrow from 7 pm to 9 pm at Starlight Theatre". It creates an event in my default calendar named 'Music Performance at Starlight Theatre' running from 7-9pm tomorrow. There's even a WHERE field that gets filled with 'Starlight Theatre'. It could hardly be better.
Wait. It could be better. See, it only works for my default calendar. Since work is my main event (at least most time-consuming) in a week, I set that to my default. So no matter what I send to it, it is automatically put in Blue as a work event. And if I don't specify a duration, it assumes one hour.
Oh, and one other little feature I almost never use but could still be helpful. Say I kept everything on one main calendar or had set a better default. I could send a text saying "day" to G-Cal, and I'd get back a summary of all that day's events. If I just want the next thing happening, I send "next". If I wanted to know what's up tomorrow, I'd send "nday".
Well that's a long listing of all the functionality and uses I make of G-Cal. It is even more expandable, but I don't have any friends I know of that use it. I could easily see a start-up company utilizing G-Cal and Gmail for their employees. In fact I think Google sells Enterprise level versions of both of these. But the functionality is there on the free ones too.

Naruto 445: Life Kind of Sucks Everywhere

2009-04-25T07:20:00.001-05:00

So Nagato continues his monologue. To recap, the first big tragedy in his life is two random leaf ninjas killing his parents in front of him.
Nagato wakes up to find both leaf ninja also dead, and later realizes that it was his blooming powers that killed them (we don't get to see how... shucks). He sets off on his own and quickly runs out of food. Begging from people doesn't work because wherever he is in his country, most people are apparently starving.
A dog starts to follow him. He names it Tiny.
He's about to collapse from starvation... when Konan offers him a chunk of bread and takes him and Tiny back to their lair. Yahiko (the kid who eventually became head Pain) is there and complains about Konan bringing back anyone. Turns out they're all war orphans.
They survive chiefly by stealing food from town markets and such.
One day they're heading back to their lair in the rain (this is the Rain Country, after all) and Nagato asks Yahiko if he has dreams. Yahiko tells him that he has a big dream: to rule the world! He plans to do whatever he wants, like end wars. Nagato makes the comment 'you will be just like a God'.... right before the ground near them explodes.
Tiny is hurt. They look to see ninjas battling nearby. It's the legendary battle between Hanzo and Jiraiya's team. I'd call them the Sannin, but they didn't have that title until after this fight. Hanzo names them that after they almost defeat him. Boy he must have been some tough dude to fight off Orochimaru, Jiraiya AND Tsunade. Then again Hanzo is standing on the head of a giant salamander (expected to be his summon), and Jiraiya is being propped up by Tsunade. Oh, and there's like 15 ninja already strewn on the ground behind Jiraiya's team. So yes, Hanzo was definitely a super-tough ninja.
So Nagato and the others flee to a safe distance. I'm pretty sure Tiny's dead. and Yahiko yells that if war is going to continue, he's going to become the god of this world.
And that's when Yahiko's dream became Nagato's as well.
END.
Oh, and next issue we MIGHT get to hear about Nagato's other big pain in his life that drove him to blow up the Leaf Village. I certainly hope so. I can only take so many flashback issues before my brain starts to fizzle.

Hero of the Month: Miss California Carrie Prejean

2009-04-22T10:17:00.003-05:00

Celeb Comments Made Here

This young lady had the moral fortitude to honestly answer a tough question knowing that it wasn't what the judges wanted to hear. Since her unpopular comment this weekend, she has been called all manner of names. One judge who is openly gay has called her a 'dumb B'. Another judge has stated that she would have been better off if she just lied and placated the judge's viewpoints. Her faith is likely what cost her first place at the pageant.
What's particularly disgraceful is not only the "tolerant" people tearing her apart for not agreeing with them, but the "Hollywood Christians" spouting the God Is Love message. If you folks had ever cracked a Bible, you might have noticed that God does call us to love His creation, including all other people. But after He says that, He also commands us to call out sin when we see it and not falsely discern the Word of God. God even went so far as to say that homosexuality is an "abomination". He certainly doesn't sugar-coat it, and neither should His followers.
Keep the faith and strength that God has graced you with, Carrie Prejean. Remember, they do not hate and rebel against you; all their hateful words and feelings are truly directed at the God whom you serve.

**UPDATE** Even if they find out Carrie's not a good person, it doesn't remove the fact that she was bullied for the faith she claimed. Looks like Steven Crowder played it safer on this one by focusing solely on the bullying than I did. He went so far as to say that "Hollywood Christian" is equal to "doesn't do heavy drugs when they're offered". You go, boy!

Andy Richter Takes a Shot at cocky Prius owners

2009-04-22T08:48:00.000-05:00

What I Know About Earth Day

2009-04-22T06:05:00.001-05:00

It's not a real holiday or I wouldn't be at work at 6:04 AM to post this.
Wherever you are, look down. That's the earth. Are you glad it's still there? Me too. Yay. Earth Day celebration complete.

Steven Crowder: Conservative Video Blogger Extraordinare

2009-04-20T10:26:00.000-05:00

I've listened to my fair share of video bloggers on the web. SxePhil had my attention for awhile, but he quickly grew monotonous. As a more conservative individual, I sometimes pondered if there was a voice on the web that I might agree with. Enter Steven Crowder.

This young lad throws web videos on YouTube and sparks all sorts of conversation and controversy. He calls people on their crap, but does it in a very humorous and enlightening way. I particularly love a video he made not too long ago about the Koran. I may have put one of them on my Shared Items page awhile back, but I'll repost a choice few here for your convenience.
He's tackled issues like universal healthcare, PETA, abortion, gun control, torture at Gitmo, and VP Biden's creepiness. He's all over, and generally delightful.
Mostly, you have to admire the hair. It bobs when he moves his head quickly. That's some awesome lift of which I am majorly envious.

Naruto 444: Random Leaf Ninjas Are Meanies

2009-04-18T22:31:00.002-05:00

So Naruto finally meets Nagato. Nagato's all cocky like 'hey, from this distance I can control you with my chakra.' He shoots one of his bars at Naruto, and it hits true. Then, when he tries to connect with Naruto he feels the fox looming up. Close-up on Naruto's eyes have the overlap of the eyes he gets when the fox demon chakra overflows and the toad sage eyes. I think they should be called Sage Fox eyes.
Anywho, he doesn't care about the stick. He pulls it out and tells Nagato that he still hates him and wants to kill him. He wants to kill him so bad he's shaking. Naruto remembers all the people that meant so much to him that Nagato killed (Jiraiya and Kakashi, basically). Naruto starts running up to punch Nagato....
And then he stops. He remembers his father and Jiraiya telling him to be the difference. To find real lasting peace. So he asks Nagato what made him the way he is.
Nagato tells him there are two sources for his pain, and the first one is his parents' death happening right before his eyes.
Basically his village was stuck in the middle of the war Konoha was having back in the day with someone else. These two miscellaneous leaf ninjas break into his family's home and start eating their food. Nagato and his family are all hiding in the a dark corner. Well the ninjas finish their food and look outside, and Nagato's parents decide to try to sneak by them. Well someone knocks something over and it startles the ninjas. Nagato's dad attacks them hoping his family can escape while he distracts. In the darkness and shadows, all the leaf ninjas see is people coming at them and assume it's their enemies. So they kill both of Nagato's parents right there. They were very apologetic afterwards, but Nagato's pain and new-found hatred for Konoha made his eye technique burst forth.
And that's all we get. I almost miss the simplicity of Naruto's younger days. Bad guys attacked people, he and the other good guy leaf ninjas showed up to save the day. Now we have to find out about this dark underbelly where Konoha is ignoring the plight of other nations and bad guys are given a chance to explain the hardships of their lives and their feelings for 5 volumes. Bah! If I wasn't so invested in the story, I'd almost consider giving it up out of the continued frustration of waiting for another installment.

Bonus Video Thursday: Motion Sickness is Fun!!!

2009-04-16T18:09:00.002-05:00

A video game came out following a Japanese girl on the run from... well everyone. I don't personally remember the plot. Basically the game got some hype because it had a fast-paced, city hopping first person view that most would consider highly impossible. I'm talking crazier than Jackie Chan beating up 15 burly guys with nothing but a bucket and a stepladder at the age of 55. Wait... I think I saw that one...
Anywho, video goodness.

Video Wednesday: Geek Sea Shanty

2009-04-15T08:37:00.000-05:00

Short On New Material

2009-04-13T22:23:00.004-05:00

While it's true that my buffer of new material for Mondays has run dry recently, I did take the time today to write up (read that as 'mostly steal') a privacy policy for my site. Turns out that the Ad company I started using not long ago actually requires I have one. And according to some agreement I may or may not have read and then clicked the "I Agree" button for, I have to honor it. So there's now a link in the sidebar. That's to your right =>

For those (one) of you that follow my feed, you already know this. I apologize for the redundancy.

For everyone else, including some nice people in Illinois, thanks for visiting and remember to always browse safely!

**UPDATE**I did have someone request that I find a way to provide room to comment about the stories that I put in my Shared Items box to the right. There's only one thing I can think of, and it's something I've seen on many other people's sites. Basically I'd do a post once or twice a week with all those links and maybe a comment or two from me about each. Then everyone could comment on that post and we could discuss current events and geek news and comic strips and whatever else I shared on there. Do we like this idea? Or would we all just prefer I keep that box with real-time shared stuff and forget about this commenting thing until Google rolls out support for it? Let me know.

Naruto 443: Peace Has Finally Arrived

2009-04-11T13:00:00.002-05:00

This is going to be a quick summary because I have things that need to be done today. Sorry if you were looking for line-by-line detail.

One of the battle frogs and Hinata are back awake.

Naruto did finish off the final Pain with his Rasengan. He then removed all the chakra rods so Nagato couldn't control him anymore. Then Naruto headed in the direction of Nagato and told the slug that he didn't want any help.

The slug passed this message on to everyone else.

They're glad Naruto's alright, but they want to go help him. Even though he's drained, he still wants to talk to Nagato. Neji was the first to say that's nonsense and demand that the slug tell them where Nagato is.

On the way there, Naruto ran across Nara Shikaku (Shikamaru's dad) and Yamanaka Inoshi (Ino's dad) who were on their way to kill Nagato. Naruto gets mad at them, claiming that killing Nagato and his village isn't going to bring about any lasting peace but cause more spite towards the Leaf Village.

Shikaku has a flashback about a conversation with Shikamaru. Shikamaru was talking about going to visit Naruto in the hospital. He said he didn't know why, but there was something about Naruto's character that just made you want to follow the guy.

Shikaku tells Inoshi to let Naruto go alone if he wants to.

Naruto comes across a big tree that looks kind of... papery. He walks up and pulls the paper apart to find Konan and Nagato inside.

Nagato says "Peace has finally arrived."

Video Wednesday: I Don't Want Any Of That On My Flight!!!

2009-04-08T09:28:00.004-05:00

The Best WebComic Yet: Order of the Stick

2009-04-06T16:18:00.001-05:00

So I was perusing my Google Reader feeds the other day. Seriously folks, I get 100's of updates every single day. I went on vacation once for 4 days and came back to have a little over 1,000 different things waiting for me.
But anyway, there was a very interesting post about web comics based on video games. So I actually went to the site and am reading through their descriptions for all these different comics. Some of them sound interesting, so I bookmark them to give them a demo. Some of them I could tell were right up my alley so I went to their sites and signed up to add them to Google Reader.
Order of the Stick didn't make the writer's list of game-based webcomics. But what attracted me to it was that the comments on the post mentioned it over and over again. An underground phenomenon... I gotta check it out.
So I read the newest ones first, and they looked interesting enough. But the newest one was number 640. So it seemed like a good idea to go back to the beginning...And I breezed through the earlier ones in about 5 days. I couldn't get enough of this series. I was reading during breaks at work (yes, it got through the firewall... somehow), I was reading when I got home. The toughest thing was remembering what number I was on as I went from work to home and home to work.
It wasn't until I was somewhere in the 400's of comics that I thought, 'hey, maybe some of my readers have the spare time and would be interested in this same cast of characters.' I grabbed a few snapshots, and I hope since this is a post telling others to go to his site, the artist doesn't get upset I copied his work.
The basic premise of the story: a band of characters IN A TYPICAL GAME are questing together. They all have different personalities and classes. Roy is the leader, and he is a warrior. Think big sword, but somehow still a sound leader. Then there's Vaarsuvius, the gender-neutral elf. He's a magician, and a pretty good one too. There's Durkon who is a dwarf paladin healer. They give him grief all the time because his armor makes so much noise when they're trying to sneak around. Oh, and he's scared of trees. Like they're out to get him. Elan is a bard, which sounds like and is a relatively useless skill. Somehow they claim he boosts the others' efforts by singing positively about whatever they're doing. Basically he's like the retarded comedy relief. Elan's human, like Roy and Haley. I didn't mention Haley yet? She's a thief class and she uses a bow to sneak attack and strike from a distance. And she LOVES gold.Last and only least in size is Belkar. He is by far my favorite character. He's a halfling (think hobbit) with furry feet and two small daggers to fight with. He's a rogue class, and he's a little crazy. The rest of the team isn't sure whether he's good or evil. He seems terribly self-serving, and what serves him best is to kill any weird creatures they meet and boost his XP.
What's cool about them basing this strip on a game is they randomly break into gamer lingo. I'm guessing it's not so much a video game this one is based on as it is a board game like Dungeons & Dragons. They talk about rolling their dice and they get saves or hits or whatever. Even I don't necessarily get all the references, having never played D&D before. But they're not a big distraction, and the storyline is still hilarious without it.
I will warn whoever does start reading this comic: it can eat up a fair bit of time getting into this series. That is until you catch up to the new ones. I think the artist puts out new ones about twice a week. He's maintaining another series called Erfworld that I just started reading and don't think I'll like as much.
Also, it might just be my computers, but some of the links on the site don't work quickly. I actually got in the habit of clicking the link over and over until the page changed.
I assure you, if you have the time and know anything about gaming (that includes you WoW fans), you will get a real kick out of this series. Pleasant webcomic reading to all.
Link to first comic

**UPDATE** Pics were removed after I perused the artist's site and saw a question in his FAQ about people stealing his original work. In concern that my tribute wasn't enough to warrant grabbing a couple punch lines, I removed them and replaced them with approved icons and banners the artist provides for people to pimp his site with. Seriously, if you follow the link provided and read the strip, you'll like it. Why get a free demo here when the whole thing is freely available there??

Naruto 442: Here's Your Answer

2009-04-03T06:24:00.003-05:00

Hinata is being healed by Sakura. Lots of pretty color photos of the old friends. Even the one big shot I share with you here, showing the kids from Team Kakashi, then and now, as well as the Pain/Nagato/Konan's then and now pics. Very pretty.
Anywho, Rock Lee wants to back Naruto up. The slug tells him he shouldn't, he'll just get in Naruto's way.
So Pain stopped Naruto's attack, but it was really a clone made to look like the attack. So the spinning death vortex is still flying at Pain. Suddenly 2 rocks to either side of Pain pop out as Naruto clones! They try to grab Pain's legs to hold him in place. Unfortunately Pain catches up fast. He pins them both down with more of his swords, then holds himself up between his swords. So the vortex of death goes right under him, chops his swords, and blows up some rock, causing a big dust cloud.
So the seconds are still counting down before Pain can use his repulsion attack again. As the dust settles, all the rocks around Pain pop out and become clones and the actual Naruto jumps up to lead them to all simultaneously attack Pain. And JUST as he's about to punch Pain, the timer runs out and Pain repels them all.
But wait! Naruto figured on that too. All the clones brace themselves behind Naruto and hold him there. It's a strain on him to be held in place and so forcefully pushed away, but even Pain is thinking "with 5 seconds before I can do that again and him being this close, he can totally hit me". Pain yells something at Naruto about giving up unless he has 'the Answer'. Naruto has a moment remembering everyone telling him that he could find his own answer. So he forms a Rasengan and plunges it into Pain's gut. END.
Apparently his answer was to use the attack Jiraiya taught him against the enemy Jiraiya helped train. So :P

Video Wednesday: What Facebook Is For

2009-04-01T07:52:00.000-05:00

Lessons from college: learning never ends

2009-03-30T09:13:00.000-05:00

That's right, kiddos. Just when you thought you'd escaped that dreadful education stage of your life, the world is going to punch you in the face. This was a bit of advice that was given to me especially because of my tech major: learning never ends. Might as well get used to learning, because the most rewarding thing about most days will be the ability to learn something new.
The reason they told me this specifically in my field was because every 5 years, half of the knowledge learned in a tech degree has become obsolete. I found it funny that my professors were telling me this, because my degree took me 4.5 years already. So now half a year after starting, I'm almost as dumb as I was initially. Boo math!
So my suggestion, now that we've discussed learning to pay attention and trying to overcome procrastination: take your continuing education by the horns. I went so far as to spend an hour considering WHAT it was I wanted to learn. See, college classes were very structured. The professors had been teaching almost the same thing for years. Sometimes I was interested in spending more time on a particular subject, but their planners said we had to move on. So I thought about what I WANTED to learn, what I COULD learn to help me in my job, and what I SHOULD learn to help me in my life.
The list of things that I wanted to learn came pretty easy to me. One of those was Bible, so I've spent additional time as of late studying my Bible and even reading outside material. I even used some of my Borders gift cards I got as graduation gifts on buying a wonderful study Bible. The library is GREAT for acquiring my 'textbooks'. The other books were by authors like Os Guinness (yes, related to the beer people) and Ravi Zacharias. Both of these authors I highly recommend. I've started a book or two by Chuck Swindoll; he's not a bad author, but I seem to have trouble getting into his works. The other subject I wanted to learn was Korean. So far that subject has been waffling. I have all the resources I need. But like with other languages I've thought about learning, I get into it a little bit and then hit a wall. I know I need to buckle down on this one, seeing as my rote learning ability is flying out the window as we speak.
For short-term goals in what I could learn to help my career, I thought I might crack a book about software engineering or quality assurance. See, I took a class in college called Software Engineering. I should have been a lot more involved in it than I was considering that's EXACTLY WHAT I DO AT WORK. But instead I got a B in the class. So I took the wrapping off the textbook a couple weeks ago and started focusing on learning it to apply at work. It does really help to have current life experience to link the knowledge to. As for the quality assurance (I am a software tester, after all), I got a "Crash Course in CMMI" book from the library. I think this may actually have been a textbook, once upon a time. I haven't looked at that one as much as I should. I need to though, because not only is it a guideline for documentation and process improvement in the technology field that will likely follow me my entire career, but my work section is going through a CMMI review right now. Basically I could be involved in a lot more conversations with people that don't expect me to be fluent in the subject if I had already started perusing that book.
And last but not least, what I should be learning is oddly the area ignored the most. I think the problem with this category is kind of what most kids think of Calculus in high school: will I ever need this stuff? I've been driving for 7 years and been just fine knowing nothing about cars, so obviously it's not direly necessary. As for home repair, I am years away from buying a home. The one subject that I've done well in this area has been cooking. I've been collecting recipes from the Internet and started watching the Food Network more often to get myself accustomed with all those spices in the pantry. This is an immediately helpful topic because my family and I eat dinner, like, every night and different typically goes over very well..... I sounded like a teenage girl with that last sentence, didn't I? My bad. *Pulls chest hair to affirm manliness*
So there were the basics of my 'curriculum' for the 'semester' after graduation. I haven't stuck to it 100% for sure, but I'm still more focused with my time and keeping my brain working. Last time I checked, that was recommended by 5 out of 5 doctors, which is better than I can say for most things in the world. And those aliens from Hulu (Alec Baldwin) won't be scooping my mushy brain out with a melon baller anytime soon either.
Happy days of learning new things to all.

Naruto 441: Let's See The Real You

2009-03-27T15:13:00.000-05:00

Yes! Finally some loose ends being tied up instead of more unraveled. That was starting to get annoying.
So when Naruto went into fox form, it disrupted his chakra enough that his clone that was still gathering sage energy disappeared. So not only is he back, but he has a full dose of sage chakra to boot. The problem with this is, Pain knows exactly what Naruto's limits are. He's got two Rasen Shurikens and he'll be done.
Meanwhile, this battle has been so taxing that Nagato's actually bleeding out the mouth. Wouldn't that be something if this psycho puppet master died without anyone ever touching him? That would save loads of time trying to hunt him down.
Guy's team has finally reached the village. The giant toad they passed on the way in told them the village had been attacked and they should hurry to help. Tenten assessed Hinata's injuries and says her wounds aren't fatal unless she doesn't get help soon. Yay double negatives. Guy's shocked at how devastating the destruction is. Rock Lee, always excited to have valuable input, shouts that there's a smaller toad unconscious on the other side of the field. That would be the female elder toad. And that's all Bushy Brow contributes to this entire volume. :(
So Pain starts yakking again about what real pain feels like. Somehow one of the slugs Tsunade summons is still with Naruto. Even though he ran a great distance. How fast do those slugs slide along that it could've kept up?? Anywho, it assures Naruto that he didn't hurt anyone before he and Pain fled the village.
So Naruto, being the brilliant strategist he's become recently, tells Pain he wants to talk to his true self (Nagato). Pain tells him that there's no time left for words. He plans to avoid Naruto's two big attacks so his sage energy's gone, then beat him to a pulp and take him away. He whips out another sword and charges at Naruto.
Naruto tells the slug he has a plan to find the real bad guy. He runs at Pain, grabs the sword, snaps it in half, and stabs the piece he has into his shoulder. Turns out that these swords Pain kept producing are actually more of those energy rods that Nagato uses to channel chakra to the corpses he controls. And in sage mode, Naruto is able to trace the chakra flow and now knows exactly where Nagato's hiding. Yays!
Then he does what Pain expected him to do, and creates one of his Rasen Shurikens. And he throws a smoke ball. Pain has seen this before, and believes himself prepared to not fall for the same trick twice. He sees the Shuriken coming at him and repels it. It blows into smoke, and Pain realizes it was actually a transformed clone made to look like the attack. Now Naruto's all ready to take advantage of that 5-second window in Pain's reboot time and knock this guy out.
And that's it. Next week promises more of this conclusive battle in color. Whether they'll actually END the dang battle or not is anyone's guess. I'm just personally glad to hear that Hinata should be okay. I like that girl. And apparently so do the artists; they featured her by herself on the cover of the volume.

Video Wednesday: That Jean-Luc Picard

2009-03-25T08:46:00.000-05:00

A Video on a Tuesday? No way!

2009-03-24T15:23:00.001-05:00

Why all pop music sounds the same

Better Late Than Never: Asus EEE PC Review

2009-03-23T07:54:00.000-05:00

*Technically the bulk of this review was written in December. I was dragging my feet trying to get the audio to work before posting it. Oh, and I was debating whether I should take original photos or steal other people's from Google Image Search. Turns out laziness in finding the camera, setting up the environment, getting the light right, configuring the image quality, & all that jazz was left to someone else. Yay image sharing!
A couple months ago I purchased the Asus EEE PC. It's a netbook, which is a classification of tiny laptops. I find it fun to talk about netbooks, because they fly completely in the face of modern computers. Since the dawn of the computer, it's been about what we can fit in the same space as the previous version. A little effort was made to control size and weight, which is why you never found a 30 pound laptop without a briefcase handle on it. But by and large the philosophy was "Alright, last year we sold a dual core processor XP laptop with 160gb hard drive in this case. So to progress, we'll add a blue streak to the outside of the case, as well as quad-core processor with Vista and 540gb hard drive. It still fits! And we can charge thrice as much! High five time!!" Okay, maybe that was a little unrealistic. No one outside of Britain uses the word thrice anymore.
The whole concept of the netbook is in benefit to the companies that can't keep up with the big tech developers like IBM and Dell. They looked at the world of laptops and said "hey, what if I want an ultra-portable laptop just to check my email and write word documents?" Surprisingly, they actually found a market with this philosophy. Me included.
When I started college I had the ultra-powerful laptop of the time. It stored all my school papers AND ran all my computer games wonderfully. I also ran into space issues with it because it was a widescren laptop that weighed 16 pounds, the same as a fat dachshund. The EEE PC has been a dream because most of my textbooks weigh more than it. It's sturdily enough made that I don't worry about it being crushed by everything else in my backpack.
Now for the downside of this $300 little wonder: the hard drive space and processor. The built-in storage space is all of 4 GB. Yes, that's retarded. My mp3 player holds 30GB, by golly! So at my first chance, I bought an 8GB SD card that's sole purpose is to live in this netbook and hold any programs or papers I have for this computer.
The processor speed is slow enough that you have to either have patience or have something else going on. In the modern world where we want the computer to run as fast as we think, this little guy simply will not keep up with the pace.
It probably didn't help the speed that as soon as I brought it home I reformatted the system. Out of the box it had an Asus special edition Linux OS. It wanted me to learn Chinese! How globally special that must seem. But alas, I speak one language poorly enough as it is. No need to offend a couple billion more people. So the first thing I did was install Windows XP. Yay familiarity.
Since then I've used it for note-taking and web browsing at school. It connects to the wireless networks just fine, and the battery life is impressive. As my big laptop aged, spending an hour unplugged became impressive. This little guy does 2 hours without breaking a sweat. I love that.
Overall, I consider it $300 well spent. I would recommend one of these mini-laptops to anyone on a budget who is comfortable storing their lives on the web with gmail and online note-taking applications like Evernote. But the important thing to remember is what you are getting by keeping that price down. I wouldn't ever suggest this as someone's ONLY computer. Continue to play WoW on your tricked out laptops or everyday desktops.
Pleasant mini-computing days to all.

**Pre-release update** After reformatting the hard drive so it ran XP, I hadn't been able to get the right sound driver. After months of scouring the web, installing numerous drivers and rebooting just to find sound didn't work, I finally hit the jackpot and found the right site. Techspot.com finally hooked me up with just the right software. Thanks, folks!