majiksznak

Awesome essay, with notes from marker.

Chandler and Rachel teach you about Windows 95.

Fake Chinese brands. I don't know: I sort of like my pmua shoes.

Heathrow Airport prank: getting funny names called over the intercom. Totally worth a click. Audio clips are NSFW (with speakers).

Should I buy a PS3? I can get one for $700 with 2 controllers, 4 games, HDMI cable, and a 1 year warranty (minus one or two weeks).

Should I go for it?

It doesn't matter what the games are: there aren't any good PS3 games out yet...

The kitten is tired. A million hearts break.

Yes! Spectreman is an old Japanese giant monster TV show with an environmentalist theme that I used to watch a lot as a kid. Except in French.

I own the 7" record of the French theme song, which is killer.

Darth Vader nesting doll. Brilliant!

Stephen Hawking takes a ride on the vomit comet.

[click-clickclick-click] *w h e e e*

Zoomy's Fun Page is an old feature that I think of every now and then. Check them out: brilliant work.

I Can Has Cheezburger?

A site dedicated to the relatively new phenomenon of animal pictures with poorly spelled quotes. I consider this a guilty pleasure.

Ever wonder what God thinks of fisting? Wonder no more!

Some awesome eBay feedback.

Next time don't write CONTAINS PORN in big red letters all over the box! sheesh!

Good News! the puppy arrived ALIVE this time! Guess 9 times a charm!A++

CONFUSED? the ouija board says I should poison my wife, the 8-BALL says to wait.

Pranking a comedian: convince the audience not to laugh. So awkward!

Just a reminder, Toothpaste For Dinner is awesome.

iPod-ready grill. Is it still April Fool's day?

Todd Goldman sells t-shirts with funny stuff on them. The really funny thing is, it turns out he's a total thief. He was found out recently and the webosphere has been abuzz ever since.

Hasselhoff lightsabre battle! Thanks to the illustrious Chris Craddock for the link.

From the movie Starcrash which rates a 3.0/10 on IMDB.

If you haven't seen the video for Star Guitar by the Chemical Brothers (also a presumably higher quality version from the Chemical Brothers' website that didn't seem to work for me in Firefox), check it out. Then, watch the making of Star Guitar. It's a phenomenal music video.

Hair metal is back, baby... Massacration!

10 easy steps to a fascist America. Thanks, 9k.

Joe Francis is in jail and he's not doing well. He's the asshole responsible for Girls Gone Wild.

Apparently, Spider-Man 3 is the most expensive movie ever made.

One oft-overlooked aspect of WWII is the Giant Robot platoon battles.

Trailer for Balls of Fury. I must see this movie. Link thanks to TSA.

15 things Kurt Vonnegut said better than anyone else.

Pictures from Liz, Brigitte, Lee, and Seana's combined birthday party.

The Front Line Assembly show at New City was awesome!

Some of the tunes sounded pared down to essentials: it's hard enough to produce an album with so much instrument layering, let alone do it live. I've always been curious how Electronic music gets performed live. FLA does a great job of incorporating live drums, guitar, and synths into their music.

I've always been a big fan of Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber, and it was amazing to see Front Line Assembly live, with Bill Leeb screaming awesomeness at me.

We need to add another word to the list of misspellings that make you look stupid. "Rediculous" is extremely common these days. And that, my friends, is ridiculous.

SNL Digital Shorts. Thanks, Norski!

Darth Vader hot air balloon. I wonder if they can make the breathing sound by modulating the intensity of the flame...

Crash Bandicoot! Just how much coffee do Japanese people drink?

Disco Hitler. Enough said.

Arnold shows off his acting chops.

The Coy Hunt is playing this Saturday:

April, 21 2007 at E-ville Roller Derby Fundraiser
Alberta Avenue Community League - 9210 118 Avenue, Edmonton,
Cost : $10

You should go!

How underground is your music?

Did they release it as an mp3?
It's a Word document.

That's pretty underground.

Creepy dude playing a theremin. Make him stop staring at me through the screen!

Long, wanky, impressive drum solo by the drummer from Rush.

McDonald's Video Game. I wonder if it lets you simulate alienating your customer base and losing all your money. Thanks for the link, Norski!

Front Line Assembly is playing at New City this Friday. If you like industrial, this is not to be missed. I'm hoping not to miss it myself. Let me know if you want to go!

Canada is getting its own DMCA. Ever write a letter to your MP before?

Ode to Zach Braff

I don't care what you say,
in a non-gay way, I love Zach Braff!
Zach Braff!

Thanks, Bari!

Apparently, there's a new Weeble in town. This shape is uniformly weighted but always rights itself.

Beck music video: Hell Yes. Dancing robots! And for the ladies: bunny rabbits.

So! Sarah, lead singer of The Coy Hunt is getting a tortoise, and she was wondering what to call it. My suggestions so far:

Mr. Turtle (After the turtle in My Name Is Earl, even though it's a tortoise)
Shelley
Sheldon
Regular Gonzalez (From the Futurama quote: "That guy makes speedy Gonzalez look like regular Gonzalez!")
Souperman (on account of turtle soup)
Niles (I just think it's funny)

Other names on the table:

Alan Partridge
Clark
Larry

Suggestions?

All this talk about barroom brawling and getting into fights (don't miss ninethousand's link) got me thinking. Is it really wrong to hit a girl? Isn't it sexist to say you can't punch a girl who's trying to fight you?

Have you ever gotten into a fight? With a member of the opposite sex? How'd that go for you?

Discuss...

Some new Transformers from Something Awful.

A few bar fighting tips from the nicest gentleman in the world. Seriously: if I met him I'd buy him a beer and be really nice to him.

White Chicks & Gang Signs (video).

How to be a successful Evil Overlord. A few tips.

First! The story of the "first poster".

Mull it over. Mull it the fuck over.

Do I feel ashamed of myself? Definitely.

NSFW language.

Clever pictures by Chima Madoz.

Japanese weirdness! Shaking Hands. Bonus: Shake Hands With Beef by Primus.

GWB as a Jedi (from Robot Chicken)

He he he. Tacos rule.

Something Awful article: Wikipedia Userbox Roadshow.

Video of someone totally kicking ass at Guitar Hero.

ZDNet: 10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid.

Soon I will be the proud owner of some Tetris-block shelves that my dad is putting together for me.

I just have to be careful how I stack them if I don't want them all to vanish.

Hot Panda is playing at the Metro Billiards club on Saturday, April 14th. They rule!

DRM-Free music in the Zune store too but who owns a Zune?

Superthunderstingcar is a parody of the old "Supermarionation" shows like Thunderbirds. The short guy does a bang-up job of acting like a marionette.

My birthday party was awesome. Thanks, folks!

Sorry I didn't open all my presents / cards at the party. Thanks for all the stuff: it is much appreciated!

Jess: the cake went over extremely well and was judged delicious by all.

P.S. as if this were a letter... If you had pizza and didn't pitch in, hook me up the next time I see you.

Your Scene Sucks. Pictured: the Prehistoric Emo.

Standard captchas are not enough.

My pictures of Whyte Ave at night from April 4th, 2007. Help me pick out the good ones. I think that three of them are not bad, and I'd like to know what "y'all" think.

Pictures from Chernobyl.

How Terminator 3 should have gone.

I haven't read the article yet, but the title is interesting: Why are Geeks Often Atheists?

The HMV Mascot has been that little white dog for a long time. They're replacing it with Gromit!

Here's the text of an e-card I got from Jessica. I thought it was awesome.

This is Binky

It's Binky's birthday.

Don't light those candles, Binky!

Binky must be kept away from open flames.

Happy Birthday!

From me and binky.

Binky who is not flame retardant.

The presentation really brings it together. Hallmark does good work.

Mini-review.

I am displeased with webcams. I was hoping to upgrade my old and busted one (with old, unsupported drivers that result in the cam only being usable once per boot) with a nice new one. Here's my experience:

Logitech Orbit MP ($120):

First off, make sure you get whatever store you're at to check the price at Memory Express before you buy anything there. Or just go to Memory Express: they were selling this camera for $40 less than London Drugs.

The Orbit MP looks really stylish. You can use it in one of two configurations: right on the base or on a 9" extension (pictured). Sadly, you can't easily stick it on top of an LCD monitor unless the bevel is wide enough and you are brave enough to put it there. The picture quality is really nothing to write home about, though it captures 640x480 video relatively smoothly.

Here's the dumb bit... The sensor is supposed to be a 1.3MP sensor, so there's plenty of breathing room there for doing digital zoom. However, even at 320x240, as soon as you zoom in, the 320x240 image is simply scaled and cropped. There's no excuse for this. Plus the colours aren't great.

Also, it lacks a physical privacy shade, which is great if you're paranoid. The neat thing about this guy is the motorized pan/tilt controls, which combined with the "face tracker" mode will ensure that it follows you around.

The software also uses face tracking to let you fool around with various ridiculously entertaining effects. The face tracking works pretty well (sorry: WMV link only) and only loses where your face is if you're moving weirdly or start drinking coffee or something. Great fun, but that doesn't excuse the zooming issue.

Move on to...

Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000 ($100)

This is a very compact camera that comes with a very nice little carrying case that keeps the USB cable tucked away neatly. The lens part clicks in, which is nice for assured privacy for the paranoid and also to keep the lens safe in transit. That portion rotates up and down a little bit.

Now we're talking! You can zoom in with this camera and it is smart enough to know it can use the 2 Megapixel sensor to its advantage. Zooming in doesn't cause the image to get blurry. Past a certain point, the image quality does suffer, but just because at the highest detail, it's a really crappy sensor.

Overall, the image quality isn't wonderful (though pretty good for a very compact camera). Sadly I don't have a sample picture, but fortunately, that's one less picture of me you have to look at. The video also seems to come in bursts. You'll stop moving for a while, then suddenly you see all the frames come in. Video is much more jerky than on the Logitech models I tried.

There's only one way to secure this camera to anything: clip it to a laptop display. There's nothing that lets you attach it to a normal sized LCD or CRT monitor. Also, it's too light to just set down anywhere. Because of its deficiencies, I tried a:

Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision ($140)

Hoping in vain that the Orbit MP was unique in its flawed zooming design, I went with the Ultra Vision. No motion tracking, a hefty pricetag, and (their words) "Unsurpassed image quality through 5 precision engineered lens elements".

This camera is built intelligently: the curved, rubberized extrusion lets you easily hang it off the back of an LCD monitor or rest it on top of a CRT (if you rotate the lens up). It feels the most solid of any of the cameras I tried, and the lens is larger than on any of the other webcams.

I thought the image quality was better than on the Orbit MP until I compared two pictures side by side... Can you tell the difference? It's hard to tell, but it does look a bit better.

Unfortunately, this camera suffers from the same zooming issue as the other Logitech model, which is really stupid. Plus it's more expensive and doesn't have motorized pan / tilt.

Conclusion

All of these cameras have critical flaws, but the Microsoft model was the most promising to me just because of the proper zooming. If only it captured video as smoothly as the Logitech models and offered some way of securing it to an LCD monitor, it would probably be worth the $100. If I could combine aspects of all three, I'd have a winner. And I'd probably be willing to pay $200 for a camera with pan/tilt, a nice lens, proper digital zoom, and a good mounting mechanism.

One thing makes me feel better about all this: nobody really needs a webcam.

Commonly Misused Words Test. I was sad about the ones I missed. <smacks forehead>

English Genius
You scored 100% Beginner, 92% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 93% Expert!

I got balloons delivered to my office for my birthday. The card doesn't say who they're from, but I correctly guessed they were from someone awesome. Thanks, Lizard!

Video of Transformers costumes.

A few new pictures from the upcoming Transformers movie (mildly NSFW pics on site).

James Doohan's ashes (Scotty from Star Trek) are finally getting shot up into space.

This is already a few days old, but Apple is now offering higher quality and DRM-free tunes from EMI. They cost 30 cents more and are encoded at 256kbps instead of 128.

So I'm 30 years old now. As near as I can figure, this means I can no longer:

• Excuse my behaviour.
• Expect to be viewed with anything but disdain by the young.
• Hold off growing up.

Mistakes men make when having sex with women. Generally good advice, though everybody's different.

Dynamic ferrofluid sculpture. I love this!

A Something Awful article: The Inbox of Nardo Pace: The Empire's Worst Engineer. Heh:

Subject: Death Star :(

I remember having a conversation very similar to this comic at least once before, because I am a nerd.

Well, I'm up for renewal in a few days and sadly, I can't justify the expense of maintaining the Sznak. I've got other expensive things to spend my money on and while I'll be sorry to see it go (and all the content), it has to be done.

If you comment on this post I'll copy them to my new blog on Blogspot as one big first post.

It's been a slice!