Seriously?

I file-system-checking HATE this town. Honestly, can't a guy have a new car for more than like a month before someone rear-ends him?

Damnit.

Grossly inappropriate

Anyone care to guess why? We can make a game of it!

How you know the global economy is tanking

http://news.aol.com/article/german-sex-industry/441881

On the one hand: it's scary that even whores are having to start offering discounts to stay in business.

On the other hand: discounted whores! Who wants to take a trip with me to the rheinland?

-------------------
Berlin's "Pussy Club" has attracted media attention with its headline-grabbing "flat rate" -- a 70-euro admission charge for unlimited food, drink and sex between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

-------------------

Happy hour, indeed.

Waste of my mind

Something an acquaintance of mine once told me: take a picture of an Asian lady holding something if you want it to look bigger. I don't quite remember the context of the conversation that led to that but....

The above was one of the highlites of last week. Taking advantage of a coworker bringing in a five pound bag of gummy bears and the knowledge that freshly bitten gummies have adhesive properties akin to superglue, I endevoured to construct a chain of gummy torsos that was at least six feet in length.

It's made of over 300 gummy torsos, weighs half a pound, and is six feet, one inch in length. The one in the photo above broke when she tried to hold it above her head; it has since been reaffixed.

To make it I had to eat 300 gummy bear heads and feet, again roughly half a pound, and you had better believe I felt sick afterwards.

These are the things that I do to entertain myself nowadays. Anyone else doing anything particularly exciting? I know at least one grounder is building 3000 piece puzzles in their spare time.

An Unlikely House Band

I was watching that new Jimmy Fallon show recently and noticed that the house band is The Roots. I'm not sure how I feel about this. What do you all think?

Okay, seriously Japan, what the hell.

Japanese scientists shocked when robot "programmed to love" tries to love too much? Haven't they ever watched ... oh... I don't know, just about any sci-fi movie involving robots .. ever?

http://www.muckflash.com/?p=200

For those who want a general overview:

-------
The trouble all started when a young female intern began to spend several hours each day with Kenji, testing his systems and loading new software routines. When it came time to leave one evening, however, Kenji refused to let her out of his lab enclosure and used his bulky mechanical body to block her exit and hug her repeatedly. The intern was only able to escape after she had frantically phoned two senior staff members to come and temporarily de-activate Kenji.

“Despite our initial enthusiasm, it has become clear that Kenji’s impulses and behavior are not entirely rational or genuine,” conceded Dr. Takahashi.

Ever since that incident, each time Kenji is re-activated, he instantaneously bonds with the first technician to meet his gaze and rushes to embrace them with his two 100kg hydraulic arms. It doesn’t help that Kenji uses only pre-recorded dog and cat noises to communicate and is able to vocalize his love through a 20 watt speaker in his chest.

--------

Final quote: “This is only a minor setback. I have full faith that we will one day live side by side with, and eventually love and be loved by, robots"

I hope he names his next robot "Skynet".

Skynet just wants to love us too much.

The job fair experiment

So in only six days I will be standing in lines for interviews at a teacher job fair at the community college in DuPage. It will be my fourth time at the job fair and the previous three have been pretty bleak. Basically, it's one of the largest job fairs in the nation and most of the best paying schools in the state are there interviewing candidates for jobs they may not even have available. The lines are packed with candidates who are foolishly expecting to have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a second interview and an even worse chance of getting a job from the fair. They wait an hour for five minutes or less of talk time with a representative from that line's particular school district who won't remember them and only want the day to be done. The same can be said of the applicants.

The three times I've been there have been really depressing. No one is happy. The hour you wait in lines is passed only by boring chit-chat with other anxious job seekers. They share stories about other lines, how long they've waited, what school district supposedly has shorter lines and job openings, where they currently work/go to school... It's so goddamn boring. The only highlight is when you see some chick in a hot pant suit. UNTIL THIS YEAR. After this year's job fair, there will be hundreds of job seekers talking to each other and everyone they know about the guy in the chicken suit. I'm sure they'll be asking each other things like:

Why the hell would you wear a chicken suit to a job fair?

What statement is this man/woman trying to make?

Does he/she have any better chance of getting a job than me?

Why didn't I think of that?

But I think mostly, they're all just going to be so thankful to have something to entertain them for the worst six hours of their lives. There's no food. Nowhere to sit down. No hope. But at least there's a man in a chicken suit. With a camera. And resumes. You go, Chicken Suit Man. Thank you for liberating me.

If you have suggestions for how I should behave or things I should do to make the most of this situation, I'm all ears. A number of you also expressed an interest in helping fund this ordeal since I had previously expressed reservations about the expenses of doing this, because I'm cheap. The total cost will be $85. The chicken costume will be 65 to rent for a day and getting into the job fair is 20. If you want to donate to this cause, reply to this post so I can figure out the cost per person. I obviously will be putting my own money up to do this and will just hope some of you can pay me your share if you so desire. I suppose I'm not holding anyone ransom here, but I think we'll all share in the joy of the Chicken Suit Man stories and photos for a long time.

Fradgul

Contents are very Fradgul. Do not drop.

Dead Snow (Død Snø)

If there's anything that I've learned from the Indiana Jones movies (other than the fact that felt hats are indestructible), it's that Nazis make great villains. If there's anything I've learned from 28 Days/Weeks later, it's that fast moving zombies also make great villains.

So why has it taken so long for someone to make a movie about fast, Nazi, zombies? I mean, really?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-KQh87_V2Q

My favorite part of the trailer comes at 1:42, where to combat the nazi zombies, a guy grabs a sledgehammer and a sickle. Hah!

'Tis only a flesh wound!

It's old news, but the picture was so awesome I had to share it in honor of the recent crapfest of dismemberment that was "Saw V". Click the title for a link to the article it came from.

P.S. Saw V was crap.

So the earth is going to get eaten by a black hole

... what are you going to do with your last days?

The Large Hadron Collider that has everyone up in a tizzy is supposed to be booting up sometime tomorrow, and there could be any range of results, from black holes swallowing the earth, to the sudden introduction of antimatter into our matter environment, suddenly and violently detonating all life on the planet, to a vast range of nonoccurances too terrifying to not unthink aboutnot.

The question is, what are you all going to do about it?

I recommend that we spend these last few moments together doing things we would never normally do. Steal cars, rob banks, pillage villages, ravish women and stampede cattle.

Who's with me?

Alternatively, does anyone want to get together tonight and hang out or do something less exciting? Remember, it might be your last night on earth to sleep with me hang out with your friends.

I need opinions

Those of you who have met my mother.

I need to know if you think my mom actually sounds like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kRlAt44FM8&feature=email

Because I swear to god that's not at all her voice. I mean, when I heard it opening at :59, I thought "that has to be mom", but it seriously doesn't sound at all like her.

it's only a matter of time

dead by dawn!

dead by dawn!

SQUAWK!

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Since we're all such big fans of Neil Patrick Harris around here, and since this totally ties in with the last post I made (musical, joss whedon connection via Anthony Stewart Head, another actor who is referred to by three names vs. the normal two, which according to Zoolander logic would make him an assassin... but I digress!), I thought I'd link this up as it looks amusing.

http://www.drhorrible.com/

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Okay, so I have to admit I'm a super-sucker for A) Musicals and B) Anthony Stewart Head, who
played Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and is also the brother of Murray Head, who sang "One Night in Bangkok" among others.

This.

Looks.

Insane.

It also looks like the kind of thing that's destined to fail miserably at the box office. Like Sweeny Todd but without the draw of Jonny Depp and without any kind of mystery that it'll be a gruesome massacre of a film.

Still, I'm definitely going to go see it.

People who definitely wont see it: I'm going to guess Sara, probably Andrew, and actually most of the people here.

Also, it has Paris Hilton in it. I can only hope that she dies gruesomely, and from an offhand comment thrown out by the director in an interview for the movie, I believe she, in fact, does. Bonus!

This video is not in any way, shape, or form, doctored

The youtube video attached to this post is completely real, and in no way a farce, falsity, facade, or any other "fa" word, other than maybe "fact".

http://youtube.com/watch?v=iSfCZ6VO5Dk

This one is also completely true.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=G8pKQOGY2ck


... but in all seriousness, apparently these were, and yes this is partly how I know about this, JR East (Japan Railway) commercials to promote travel via rail to northern japan for ski trips.

I know it makes ME want to go skiing.

Raptor.... Ostriches?

Okay, so I know I've been jokingly putting "Raptor Ostriches" in the tag lines of my posts, but today I actually found this:

http://www.wikihow.com/Survive-an-Encounter-With-an-Ostrich

Apparently Ostriches are a serious enough threat in the wild to merit a how-to on surviving an encounter with one. They even specifically mention Jurassic Park and raptors.

Apparently Roosevelt himself has commented on the perils of Ostrich attacks, stating that "If, when assailed by the ostrich, the man stands erect, he is in great danger." Fortunately, all you have to do is lie down (next to its razor sharp disemboweling talons) and it'll leave you alone.

My personal highlight of the article (from the part about lying down):
"The bird will still likely stand on you ... and it may even sit on you for a while, but it will most likely not rip you open if you do this equivalent of burying your head in the sand"

Fuck no. How people can't be bothered by heights I don't know

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1438490562

I don't understand how people can do stuff like this. I'm mentally incapable of walking out onto a 6 story lighthouse's cupola/deck/thingie. This guy... this...

Well. Just watch it. Go for it. I'll be here when you get back.

...

Done?

What the hell, man? What were people even thinking when that was built? "Sure, an inch of concrete suspended over 10000 feet of nothing should be MORE than enough. That'll never crack or break away leaving giant holes in the ground opening out over NOTHING, forcing people to walk across rusty support poles that will probably give out at any second."

Madness.

Who wants to go sky diving?

Free music!

Though this is mostly for Thom, maybe there are some other NIN fans on the blog (all... you know... three of you who read it. high five!).

No idea if it's any good as I haven't given it a listen yet, but it IS free and legal direct from NIN, much like Radiohead's "In Rainbows" earlier this year.

http://dl.nin.com/theslip/signup

Hop on over and support not-paying-for-music!

I feel overdue to do something crazy

I was reminded today when an old friend facebook'd me, how long its been since I've done anything interesting. I don't mean like "gone to a baseball game" or "seen an interesting movie".

I mean like "going to the nevada desert for a week at Burning Man with two girls i've never met in person before" or "spending a weekend with a bunch of strangers in Pennsylvania at some meet that turned out to be at a secret Swingers Lodge in the hills".

This guy was my best friend for ages. We grew up together, spent all our time together. Right now he's in Norway, after living for a while in Argentina. He races hot air balloons. There's a picture of him on facebook of him hanging out with a tiger that's bigger than he is. Every time I talk to him he's either in a new country, starting a new business (that always fails, but that's another matter), or planting his flag on some other odd new conquest.

Me? The highlights of my days are still when I manage to get through traffic without waiting for 15 minutes at Schaumburg road.

I've been feeling listless. Restless. Like I need to do something, and if I don't do something soon it's all going to explode into a spontaneous trip to Siberia where I try my hand at being a miner for a while.

Surely I'm not the only person who gets like this? Or are you all content with your stations in life?



Does anyone want to go skydiving? Seriously.