majiksznak

I saw the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie. It was all right, but not super. It had good bits, and a lot of gags that fell flat. My enjoyment was heightened when a dude ran to the front of the theatre, held aloft his towel, and yelled, "Do you know where your towel is?" That wasn't the part I liked. Many people laughed or yelled back, "Yes!" That wasn't the part I liked either. The part I liked was when I yelled back, "You're a dork!" from the back of the theatre.

That's talent. Some guy crashed his car into the second floor of a house.

That there's some good advice (Savage Love article devoted to women giving girls advice). Especially:

The outgoing, macho-acting, good-looking guys you're attracted to will treat you like crap. The quiet, nerdy, smart, and bookish guys you are not attracted to will treat you like gold. But you may have to seek and draw them out, as they are usually shy.

Nerdy jewellery. Rowrrr!

Ace! Looks like I made it into the Theatresports rookie matches. Since there are so many people who want to play these days, RFT is now auditioning people who want to be in the rookie match. I made it in, which is good. Of course, if I suck ass, I'll have to leave. It's part of RFT's new, formal quality control policy (making sure you get your $9 worth). Here's where I keep the schedule for the rookie match. I'll update it when I get the next schedule, so you can keep it bookmarked if you are so inclined. If you use Firefox, you can hover over names, and all instances of that name will be highlighted. If you use another browser, all Hell breaks loose. I can't be arsed to fix it.

Awesome. I got that added to my door at work after a series of messages on a coworker's site. I referenced a helpful Bob the Angry Flower comic not once, but twice in the same thread.

I can't sleep because I'm sick. Instead of sleep, let me tell you about my latest acquisition...

<dunk>

In another room, I can occasionally hear my vacuum cleaner bonking into the door. I picked up a Roomba Red today (at Linens 'n Things). With the promotional deal they had on (a free rapid charger, which charges the battery in 3 hours instead of 7), and the 20% off coupon that they frequently put out in flyers, it came out to about $213 including GST. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Roomba, it is a robotic vacuum cleaner from a company called iRobot. Basically, it scoots around a room like a drunk child with a Dirt Devil. You set it down in the middle of a room, and it begins travelling in a spiral, or if you put it down on thick carpet, a rough spiral. When it first runs into something, it goes nuts. It will blindly follow whatever it hit for a while until its ADD sets in and it veers off at an angle from the wall or whatever it was that it hit. It guesstimates (that's technical, folks) how much of this nonsense it needs to do before the room is fully vacuumed. When it figures it has finished and deserves your praise, it will beep a happy little ditty and wait for you to pick it up and charge it.

Basically, a robotic vacuum that actually maps out a room and covers everything systematically would be prohibitively expensive, so the iRobot people came up with this "6 year old on a sugar high" idea. It seems to work ok. I've seen it go over the same spot 3 or 4 times, but it does seem to get everywhere. I'll admit I was laughing gleefully at my new toy when I first saw it scoot around the floor. I had purposefully not vacuumed for 2 weeks *cough* so I could see bits of lint and dirt on the floor: it got all the visible ones. It was sort of fun to watch it and wonder if it was going to get that one lintball, knowing the whole time that it can't see a damn thing.

Actually, it's not entirely blind. It has a few different sensors. Of course, there's the big bumper along the front that tells it when it has hit something and sort of where that thing is. It also has some sensors at the bottom of that bumper that tell it if it is about to careen down some stairs. It's sort of funny seeing it "slam on the brakes" right at the edge of a carpeted staircase. I did see it get stuck twice at the top of the steps. Its front wheel popped over despite its best effort to stop in time (it's really funny: the front dips down, the rear kicks up: the only thing that would make it funnier is a robotic "whoajeez!" coming from a little speaker). The carpet upstairs is pretty thick, and I think that has something to do with it getting stuck. It did manage to stop short several times when heading towards the edge at an angle. It was also able to follow the edge of the stairs through some sort of magic. I haven't tried it yet, because I don't have any D batteries, but it comes with a "virtual wall" unit that you can put on the floor to keep the Roomba from crossing into a given area. That might help with the stairs... Unless it just knocks its virtual wall unit down the stairs. I'll let you know.

It appears to follow walls using some sort of optical or sonic sensor. It will follow a wall without touching it, shaking like it wants to turn into the wall. When it arrives at a door frame, it will follow the edge, <dunk!> into the door, turn 90 degrees, and follow the door. That is, unless it has decided that wall hugging is so 30 seconds ago, in which case, it picks a direction and bolts until it hits something else.

If you're thinking about one (admit it, you are), make sure you don't get rid of your old vacuum cleaner. There's no way a Roomba could fit behind the toilet, for instance. Also, it doesn't really go right up against the wall. This isn't a big deal on a hard surface, because it has a little spinning brush on its front right side that does a pretty good job of sweeping things into the vacuum. Still, corners are an issue. Hopefully more advanced versions will have a suction arm that extends into corners. That'd be rad. If you've got an appartment and you're good about not putting stuff on the floor, this might be a bit of a time saver. You do have to take care of it: the brushes need to be cleared of gunk and occasionally cleaned, and the dust bin has to be emptied every time you use it. It also uses filters that cost 5 bucks apiece, which is a bad surprise. They say you should replace the filter every 2 months, and they include a spare. So far, I don't think I've saved myself much time, but it has definitely prompted me to tidy up so it can do its thing. The next big challenge will be tidying my room (which has about 40% floor coverage due to junk, flyers, and laundry) to see how it fares with all the irregular furniture (ironing board, guitar stand, and the elliptical machine).

I'd love to see what a cat thinks of one of these things.

Also, I wish I could sleep.

Pictures from Laurie's party (April 22, 2005).

Sushi maker. I need one for the office.

This... is... wrong! NSFA (Not Safe For Anywhere!)

Nintendo music sung by a choir group. Some of them are really well done!

Yet another offensive shirt store.

This is an impressive way of taking money from idiots.

I got my hopes up until I saw the price. $1200 USD is what you pay for a completely fanless PC case, apparently. :(

Crazy! Turning a Subaru WRX into a quad...

The Religious Discussion. Recently, Nick, Jill, and to a much lesser extent, myself have been engaged in a religious discussion. Unfortunately, the discussion was started by what seems for all intents and purposes to be an amateur shit-disturber. I'd love to bring any conversation into this post. There are a lot of great points to cover, among which are:

• Can you prove or disprove the existence of God, and is it even necessary to do so?
• Do you need God / faith / religion to have meaning in your life?
• How can biblical text be identified as fiction or history?
• How do religious teachings from different faiths fit together?

This is a fantastic column. I thoroughly enjoyed the 'hacker' vs. 'cracker' article. Thanks, Rob.

Breakdancing for the Pope. "You tear that shit up good, my son." (Thanks, Nick)

This child is coordinated.

Well, I'll be darned. I always thought that rule was good in Canada and the UK, but I guess it's only an American rule (I went to American schools as a kid).

I so love The Onion...

"It was really getting out of control," said Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. "The pope is the gatekeeper between piety and anarchy. Without a papal presence, Catholics were thinking impure thoughts, manipulating their own genitals, and acting as if homosexuality was no big deal. Thank goodness we gathered to choose the new pope, or God's Kingdom on Earth might look like Sodom and Gomorrah by now."

So, London Drugs is advertising the Magic Bullet. I'm a pretty open minded guy, but isn't it odd that London Drugs is getting into sex toys? As if that weren't weird enough, they advertise its features in a disturbing manner.

• A personal, versatile countertop magician that does any job in 10 seconds or less. Admittedly, 10 seconds is pretty impressive
• Make smoothies and protein shakes... in seconds. Hot! Come on, though: that's pretty naughty
• Make instant snacks and sandwich spreads. Ok: that's going a bit overboard, isn't it?

To boot, they advertise it as a great Mother's Day gift idea. Would you really be comfortable buying your mother a vibrator? I think not. In short, kudos to London Drugs on entering that market (no pun intended), but perhaps your advertisers should learn to be a little more discreet and tasteful.

Yes! Scrubs is coming out on DVD.

Oh, I will, dirty fortune cookie. I will.

Seems a bit harsh to me.

Pictures from Rick's birthday party (April 16th, 2005).

I just invented something. Coughee: shredded coffee beans that you roll up and smoke.

Haha! "Will it resist a tractor beam?"

Link to the article. I so want a lightsabre spoon. Also, a box of Honey Smacks with Samuel L. Jackson looking like he's going to open a can of whup-ass.

AAAAH! Remote-controlled headless zombie flies!

I shudder. The poor kid would probably look a lot better without the wacky makeup. He says it makes him feel better... How good does he feel when people make fun of him? I'm relatively open to expression in the form of personal appearance, but really, do people not have a sense of ridicule any more? Still: I don't think he should have been suspended.

Awesome... An interview with a dude dressed as a Jedi who makes his own lightsabers and is a Rocky Horror Picture Show enthusiast who is waiting in line at the wrong theatre to see Star Wars Episode III. To boot, he has a voice I can easily picture saying, "your +5 Mace of Smiting takes 34 hit points off Klapthor the Mighty."

Pictures of unhappy people at the happiest place on earth. (Yes, I know that technically, that's Disneyland's slogan, not Walt Disney World's...)

I can't count the number of times I've thought to myself, "Man: I really wish I could scratch records, but I want to look like a complete dork doing it. I wonder how..."

Wicked. Now there's a purse that says, "don't mess with this dame."

The Register, as always, makes a good point. This reminds me of the bumper sticker idea I saw online a few days ago, "Your failed business model is not my problem."

More gold from Mike: pictures of women retouched to make them look like comic book superheroines...

Some awesomeness from Mike: Super Mario Brothers music and sound effects on guitar.

Wicked! Season 2 of Knight Rider is out on DVD, and so is Season 2 of the A-Team. A happy camper I am.

Heh. "It'll be like old times only now we're old, bitter husks of the idealistic youngsters we used to be."

This is the best discussion ever.

Oh boy... "Just say no to evolution"

This reminded me of a similar incident in my first year of University. I put an embarassing junior high picture of a friend up on my personal web page (it was the link to his page). He linked to the picture directly form his page, adding a caption with his name and something about him being the coolest guy in the world. I substituted the image for a mouse-drawn MSPaint penis. Good times.

Awesome picture... It's from Eric's blog.

I had to buy and try this. Mostly because it has COCK featured prominently on the container, and partly because I like coconut. For some reason, drinking a small amount of coconut milk from a coconut after you've smashed the thing open is totally different than chugging around 250 ml of the crap. Really, it's a bit much. The container has a bendy straw (woo!) and a little fork taped to the side. The little fork is meant to be used to grab the thin slices of actual coconut floating in the drink. At first, I was excited about the coconut slices, but when I finally got to them, I wished I hadn't. They had the consistency of pickled human skin. Let's be fair: I'm just guessing at that, but the point is that they were gross. The upshot of my choking down a sickening amount of coconut milk and disturbingly gelatinous, meat-like slices of coconut is that I now have a little container that I can drink out of that says COCK on it. This gives me the opportunity to hold it out to people and unload fantastic one-liners such as:

"Would you like to sip on my cock?"
"Cock juice?"
   and of course:
"Please fellate me."

Brilliant! I saw this on the way to work. I had to turn around and get a picture. Perfectly executed prank: I'll have to look it up online to see if I can identify who pulled it off.

You've all heard that Cookie Monster is going to tone down his whole "raison d'etre," right? Here's PVP's commentary.

On boing boing, there was an article making fun of this headline: "Catholic monks living on an island off the coast of Wales have flown in a satellite dish to watch the Pope's funeral" for conjuring up images of Catholic monks flying in a spaceship... My first read of that sentence didn't give me that impression at all. What does that sentence mean to you on the first read? Does it exhibit a strong grammatical ambiguity?

I own 3 or 4 Hall & Oates albums now, among them "Big Bam Boom" and "H2O." I'm pretty sure I also have "Private Eyes." Private friggin Eyes!

I saw this phrase today: "All Animals Have Faces." Then I thought, "tasty, tasty faces."

A picture taken just outside work.

AAAAAAH! We're doomed!

My birthday present to myself: The Sennheiser PX100 headphones. They were on sale at A&B Sound, and I used a gift card from Chen-Song and Genevieve. They kick a lot of ass.

I must see this movie.

"And afterwords we can run amok! Or if you're too tired, we can walk amok."

Um. I dunno: it's kinda cool.

Yes! New vinyl. I also got myself the single of Born to be Alive by Patrick Hernandez and a Tears for Fears album.

Same broken ornament taken with in-camera flash.

A broken Christmas ornament.

Yesterday, Martin and I saw a car with some interesting bumper stickers. The first is an example of redneck-style religious zealotry, and the second was merely confusing. I believe Martin said, "Who the fuck is Wilson?" For some reason, a google search doesn't make it immediately clear, but it is related to Alcoholics Anonymous and their 12-step program. Enjoy.

So it turns out people are dumb. Go figure. When there's a word I don't understand or a concept I'm not clear on, I try to find out. Of course, I think geeks can help make the world a better place by being friendly and forthcoming with education, but it's hard to feel sorry for some of the people this article talks about.

As if it wasn't already easy enough to make fun of Star Wars fans.

That's cool. A little box you can use to transfer files between USB devices without a computer.

In case you miss that you can click on the image to get a larger version, here is the full-size picture for the headline "Cheney Offspring Bursts From Bush's Chest."

New word

inscentive: Something, such as the fear of punishment or the expectation of reward, that induces one to smell something.

This is how I want to go to work from now on.

Pictures from my birthday party (April 1st, 2005).

A great JVC product.

It dawned on me that Mike has a blog and that I'm not linking to it because I totally forgot. I've discovered his comic (new to me, since I had, as I said, totally forgotten about his blog). Dude. The 2 panels on the left side on the bottom of this strip taken out of context. 'Nuff said.

Slashdot is insufferable on April Fool's day. It is inundated with lame-ass fake stories that dorks think are clever. Fortunately, Boing Boing has gags, but not every damn story. Engadget is also readable today. Thank goodness!

Somethingawful has funny movie poster mixes right (Worth 1000 submitters: take note).

April Fool's.