Jack Black Spider-Man Parody
March 30, 2007 | 1 Comment
How could I have missed this parody from oh so long ago? Excellent stuff. Jack Black is a genious
Office Pranks
March 26, 2007 | 10 Comments
I’m a jerk.
My manager and three of my co-workers went off to the SungardHE Summit conference in Las Vegas last week…I was left to fend for myself in the office. Nope. I didn’t go. But I didn’t sit idle! I wrangled up a crew (Al, Casey, Cliff, Tim, Laurianne, and a couple others) and “decorated” their offices.
Firstly was my boss’ office, wrapped up nicely in Tin-Foil. See the full article here.
Tin Foil Used: 1,100 square feet
Time Spent: 3 hours
Continual Manpower: 5
Cost: $30
Secondly was Zach’s office, Wallpapered in Post-It Notes. See the full article here.
Post-It Notes used: 5,300 (248.45 square feet of note surface).
Time Spent: 4 hours
Continual Manpower: 3
Cost: $60.71
Thirdly was Dan’s office, covered in cups, a number partially filled with water. See the full article here.
Cups Used: 575
Time Spent: 45 minutes
Continual Manpower: 4
Cost: $25.99
Lastly was Dee’s office, I stole her monitor then filled her office section with balloons See the full article here.
Balloons Used: 280
Time Spent: 1.5 hours
Continual Manpower: 3
Cost: $12
All work was done after hours or during our lunch break on Friday. No work resources were used (save for half a role of tape and a little bit of electricity). A whole lot of plotting and fun was had by all. In fact, our Administrative God, Colleen, helped formulate a plan to ensure that the 4 prankees remained away from the office until Monday morning that involved buy-in from our CIO and the Plymouth State University Facility Services office. Basically, we told them that the carpets were being steam cleaned all weekend with some serious chemicals. Fun times :)
Following the completion of the first prank, I found myself giving numerous tours of the offices throughout the week as each prank was completed. Overall, a lot of fun! When they come in on Monday, I plan to have 4 video cameras…one in each office…to get their first reactions. Thats the plan and if I succeed, the vids will be going on YouTube.
Office Prank: Tin Foil
March 26, 2007 | 3 Comments
Tin Foil Used: 1,100 square feet
Time Spent: 3 hours
Continual Manpower: 5
Cost: $30
During this past week, our first of four - and I dare say our crowning - prank was done to my manager’s office. Using 1,100 square feet of tin foil, a number of co-workers and I coated the room in aluminum. This prank began after a long day of work…we grabbed 30 rolls of tin foil and we got right down to business.
The participants in this prank were primarily me, Al, Cliff, Casey, and Abby. Also making an appearance to help were: Jon and Bill (our DBAs) and Tim (our student Junior Web Dev).
The project began with no clue or even an estimate of how long the project would take. I started wrapping books and magazines individually that were sprawled on Ken’s desk, Jon started wrapping random objects, Bill tackled boards hanging on the walls, and Al attacked the computer monitors and docking stations. As Jon and Bill left after 30 minutes, Cliff, Casey, and Abby took their place where we tackled the office full force. I continued with wrapping the desk, cords, and the desk’s numerous…and I mean NUMEROUS items; Cliff wrapped the book case and 3 chairs; Al attacked the office corners; Abby wrapped folders, papers, and magazines; Casey wrapped clothing, name tags, a fan, and a number of other random items. Tim arrived a bit later and helped by wrapping a printer and a number of cords.
When all was said and done, the coating of Ken’s office took about 3 hours. The work was fun and all involved became very familiar with how cheap the tin foil was that I had purchased. Dollar store for the win. All in all, the final results were very pleasing. Check out the full gallery here!
Office Prank: Post-It Notes
March 26, 2007 | 2 Comments
Post-It Notes used: 5,300 (248.45 square feet of note surface).
Time Spent: 4 hours
Continual Manpower: 3
Cost: $60.71
This was our second and most time-consuming prank of the four executed this past week. Using 5,300 Post-It Notes (248.45 square feet of the little suckers), a number of co-workers and I coated my co-worker’s office in yellow sticky goodness. Wednesday after work we began this prank with a mere 1,400 Post-It Notes but after an hour and a half found that I had purchased too few. We continued the following day with another 4,900!
The participants in this prank were primarily me, Al and Cliff. Also making an appearance to help were: Casey, Abby, Ted (our Systems Group Manager) and his family.
5,300 Post-It Notes is a nice large number with a lot of repetitive motions…rip, stick, press; rip, stick, press. The application went a great deal faster than we all expected, however, we had a lot of surface to cover. We promptly found out that Post-It notes didn’t like sticking to the door, to the chairs, or the ceiling…but we shoved notes wherever we could. On and under desks, bookcases, toys, bottles, monitors, a fan, a globe, white boards, etc. Anything that would accept a Post-It Note received one.
This prank rivaled the Tin Foil prank. The final result looked amazing and really brightened up Zach’s blue room. I considered this one a pretty good accomplishment once it was finished. Check out the full gallery here!
Office Prank: Cups O Water
March 26, 2007 | 1 Comment
Cups Used: 575
Time Spent: 45 minutes
Continual Manpower: 4
Cost: $25.99
This was our third prank this past week, done immediately following the Post-It Note prank. Using 575 16oz plastic cups, a number of co-workers and I covered my co-worker’s floor and every other stable flat surface. This prank was actually a pretty fast one as we had a lot of help.
The participants in this prank was done by me, Al, and the Wisniewski family.
The cups were a mixture of clear and red (the red ones were a result of Wal-Mart not having enough clear). First, the word pwnd (a gamer word meaning “we destroyed” or “we devastated”) was spelled out in red cups (placed upside down). The surfaces of bookshelves and the desk were covered primarily in red…and then the floor began to fill out in clear. As cups were placed down, Al went back and forth between the water fountain and filled random cups 1/4 full of water with a blender pitcher.
575 cups is a fairly decent number despite the fact that they weren’t lip-to-lip on the floor. The fact that water was placed in a large number of cups causes me to pity poor Dan (the office resident) and his inevitable clean-up process. Check out the full gallery here!
Office Prank: Balloons and Missing Monitor
March 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Balloons Used: 280
Time Spent: 1.5 hours
Continual Manpower: 3
Cost: $12
This was our fourth and final prank of the week. This prank was a two parter…pretty fun and easy.
The participants in this prank was: me, Al, Casey, Tim, and Laurianne.
Part 1: Stealing Dee’s monitor. Why do this? Well, leading up to her trip to Vegas, Dee has continually (jokingly) expressed her worry that she’d return and her monitor (the sexiest monitor in ITS, Hyde Hall) would be gone. We didn’t want her worries to go away so Al and I stole her monitor and hid it in one of our DBA’s office (this done without his knowledge either). Of course…this part was super fast.
Part 2: Ballooning the Office. We used 280 12 inch latex balloons provided by Laurianne, blowing them up with an electric pump (thank god) provided by Al. Over lunch, work began on blowing up balloons, tying them, and tossing them into Dee’s office area. Because Dee and Laurianne share an office, I used plastic wrap and tape to separate the two sections and hold in the balloons! We had a nice system going for balloon blowing/tying and banged through this prank pretty quickly! This prank was a fun one that left the balloon tying people’s fingers a bit sore.
Check out the full gallery of both prank parts!
Dota 6.43b Released!
March 20, 2007 | 2 Comments
DotA has released version 6.43b! Download it here or here. Here’s the changelog:
=================
- Fixed some big performance problems lower end machines were having
- Fixed some rare bugs that caused heroes to not revive
- Fixed -swaphero, neutral creep spawn time and initial gold in -xl
6.43 Changelog:
================
- Added new mode -xl(Extended League Mode)
- Reworked the Roshan Terrain area for improved Sentinel accessibility (lots of miscellaneous tweaks and mechanics to that area have been done beyond simply terrain change)
- Fixed the multiple hero exploit
- Recoded the death timer. It is more accurate now (the display was off before, you don’t revive any faster than you used to)
- Items with armor bonuses no longer stack (Vladmir/Basilius/Assault)
- Fixed a bug with Satanic that was giving it extra life steal
- Fixed some bugs with Mekansm, Morphling Stat Change and Hand of God that caused the death timer to not properly show
- Added Bottle to the new secret shop
- Undid some of the Toughness Aura buff from last version
- Tinker no longer Rearms Arcane Ring
- Slightly reduced creep collision size due to the increased number in the last patch towards the end of the game
- Fixed Sentinel ranged creeps having slightly less regen than Scourge ranged creeps
- Mekansm and Bloodstone now tell the user when they fail to heal him properly due to stacking rules
- Watchers give slightly less gold (due to their new radiance vulnerability last patch)
- Fixed various typos
- Fixed Ring of Basilius ability from working on CotS and Essence Aura
- Song of the Siren properly sleeps units out of its vision
- Items that can be disassembled now tell you when you buy them
- Fixed a bug with chicken that lets you sell unsellable items
- Fixed Throne not providing the lifesteal capability that World Tree does
- Reduced Radiance damage bonus from 70 to 60
- Fixed Phantom Assassin’s Blink Strike range
- Death Board is on by default now (-don)
- Observer Wards last a little longer now
- Reduced Avernus’ movement speed by 5
- Temporarily disabled Meepo in -dm to fix some bugs
- Fixed the Doppelwalk and Lothar’s Edge “0!” text
- The icon for turning Rot off is now more obvious
- Changed Meepo Attribute Bonus from 40% to 25%
- Improved Unstable Concoction (When you cast it, you lock vision on the target while you channel)
- Various nerfs to Alchemist: Acid Spray AOE (700-550), Acid Spray Mana (120->160), Str/lvl (2.4->1.8), Int/lvl (1.5->1.0), Lowered health regen on level 1 ultimate, Greed Stack Duration (20->18), Greed Gold Cap (20->18), Movement Speed (300->290) but level 2 and 3 of his ultimate give him a minor boost back to his normal speed, Slight base armor reduction
- Fixed Cheese to heal the proper amount
- Fixed the creep spawn sound from happening too early in -mm
Google Personalized Home Just Got Sweeter
March 20, 2007 | 2 Comments
I came in to work this morning, headed over to my Google Personalized “Portal” and what was there? A sweet new feature! Google/ig is now themable! (with a few pre-built themes).
The style of art used in the themes are to my taste and make for a pretty fun layout. You can select from:
Classic
Beach
Bus Stop
City Scape
Sweet Dreams
Tea House
Seasonal Scape
Now, those are pretty neat in and of themselves, but the sweet feature is the fact that when you select a theme, you can specify your city or postal code and the theme will change depending on the time of day! It’s the little things that make something so sweet. Nice job Google!
My favorite theme is Tea House :)
Ultimate Web 2.0 Collaborative Game: Eat Poop U Cat
March 19, 2007 | 5 Comments
Via Ajaxian a few days ago, I was re-introduced to a great party game that I have played with pen and paper a couple times in my life. The game results in off the wall drawing and serious laughs and it has found it’s way to the web in a collaborative game of sweet humorous action.
EatPoopUCat is the name of the game. Funny name? Yeah, well this game goes by many. You may know this game as: Fax Machine; The Paper Game; Pictophone; The Picture Sentence Game; The Sentence Game; Paper Telephone; Sentence Picture; Telephone Pictionary; Descriptionary; Writesy Drawsy; Cricket Cricket I’m On Fire; or Moneyduck.
The game works like so: Someone comes up with a sentence or phrase. That phrase goes to another person who draws a picture of the phrase. That picture goes to the next person who writes a phrase to the picture (without seeing the first phrase). Rinse and repeat. The web-based game works the same, you type a phrase in a box and hit submit, or you draw right on the site or upload a picture from your compy. Easy as that! Here’s an example result of a game I participated in:
Phrase 1:For your children, go straight to the wall and jump it like a gazelle
Phrase 2: It was a bright sunny day and kids were playing in the frontyard
Phrase 3: Outside the bar, Phil was roughed up by some plug-uglies who beaned him in the head with a volleyball.
Phrase 4: If the beer and power cords don’t get you, the low flying soccer balls surely will.
Final Phrase:He has 3 choises: Drink 2 Beers, throw Frisbee-pizzas or be a human bridge for the electricity.
It’s pretty cool how the phrases/pictures change as it gets passed from person to person. In addition to the ability to do the above, each ’story’ can be commented on and rated. Plus, for pictures or interpretations you can give “kudos” to the author/artist. Oh! And as you participate in different threads, you can keep tabs on the statuses of those strips that you have done.
Lastly, for those of you that are Web 2.0 geeks, the site is Ajaxified with a combination of Google Web Toolkit, Amazon S3, and Amazon EC2, along with an in browser drawing utility that uses the Canvas element. Pretty snazzy. I’ve already wasted a great deal of time in the evenings on this site and many more to come!
Announcing Microsoft wLife ‘07 - the iLife Killer
March 13, 2007 | 5 Comments
Microsoft’s new Apple iLife killer has been announced! At first glance, it seems to be a simple re-compilation of pre-existing tools with a nice marketing package on top. Overall, a solid looking product. A special thanks to Brick Blog and Spiralbound for cluing me in on this launch.
The solid architecture behind the new wLife ‘07 suite is by far the best thing that has graced Microsoft’s OS since HyperTerminal and Volume control. Judging by their recent success with the Zune, the company is sure to maintain its place in the market. I can’t wait until their next version of Windows Character Map.
DotA Version 6.42 Released!
March 13, 2007 | 4 Comments
The new version of DotA has been released! You can download it here or here. Here is he changelog:
==[Heroes]==
- Centaur Warchief -> Changed Return from 60/30 melee/range to 50/50
- Obsidian Destroyer -> Improved cast animation a little
- Tormented Soul -> Pulse Nova no longer triggers Essence Aura
- Shadow Fiend -> Reduced Shadowraze AOE
- Axe -> Lowered manacost and cooldown on Battle Hunger
- Spectre -> Reduced area that is used to check if a hero is alone with Desolate
- Sven -> Improved Toughness Aura
- Phantom Assassin -> Improved Blink Strike range per level
- Butcher -> Hook now properly interrupts channeling
- Nerubian Weaver -> Watchers no longer have spell immunity
- Geomancer -> Geomancer clones now gain 40% of any attribute bonuses the primary has
- Crystal Maiden -> Fixed Brilliance Aura to properly stack with Ring of Basilius
- Priestess of the Moon -> Slightly reduced collision area on Elune’s Arrow
- Magnataur -> Cooldown on Reverse Polarity no longer increases per level
- Nerubian Assassin -> Slightly improved Mana Burn cast range at higher levels
- Troll Warlord -> Level 4 Berserker Rage gives a little more movement speed
- Bristleback -> Lowered movement speed by 5 and put a cap on how much Quill Spray can stack up to late game
- Venomancer -> Plague Wards now give less gold and cost slightly less mana
- SyllaBear -> When you summon Spirit Bear and it is already summoned, it no longer wastes the cooldown doing nothing, it errors properly
- Crystal Maiden -> Improved Brilliance Aura a bit
- Phantom Lancer -> Changed Spirit Lance projectile model
- Lord of Olympia -> Hero icon changed
- Ursa Warrior -> Enrage icon changed
- Vengeful Spirit -> Added a visual effect to Netherswap
- Lord of Olympia -> Added a new visual effect for Static Field
- Juggernaut -> Added a new visual effect to Omnislash
- Axe -> Added a new visual effect for when Culling Blade’s deathblow activates (86864)
- Bane Elemental -> Added a visual effect to Brain Sap
- Spirit Bear -> Entangle doesn’t work on roshan anymore
- Keeper of the Light -> Liberated Souls and Ignis Fatuus will now show attack projectile
- Dragon Knight -> Updated Elder Form tooltip to mention that it gives movement speed boost
- Added new icons for Berserker Call, Conversion, Glaives of Wisdom, Detonate, Light Strike Array, Synergy (thx snork, Black_tan, K_Prime, Mihai, L()RK@N_15, Amadi and switch)
- Axe -> Improved hero animation when casting Culling Blade
==[Items]==
- Added new item -> Hood of Defiance
- Added new item -> Assault Cuirass
- Added new item -> Bloodstone (can be disassembled, heal inspired by topic (116735)
- Satanic -> Active ability changed
- Helm of Iron Will -> Increased hp regen to +3 (from +2)
- Divine Rapier -> Now it can be manually dropped
- Vladmir’s Offering -> Bonus damage is an aura now(only on melee heroes, not creeps)
- Battle Fury -> Cleave AOE from 200 to 225
- Mekansm -> Mekansm heal stack restriction can no longer be overridden by buckler
- Ring of Basilius -> Ring of Basilius can be clicked to switch it back and forth between a version that has armor affecting creeps and one that doesn’t
- Eul’s Scepter of Divinity -> Nerfed cooldown on Cyclone
- Butterfly -> Butterfly from 25/25/25/25 to 30/30/30/30 and recipe from 1400 to 1800
- Necronomicon -> Lowered mana burn a bit
- Bottle -> When bottle with rune expires due to time, it uses the rune instead of wasting it (122057)
- Ancient Tango of Essifation -> Removed cooldown when buying tangos
- Sentry and Observer wards -> Changed a bit
- Reduced cooldown on buying all other items
- Mjollnir -> Changed icon to the one suggested on the forums (102574)
- Gem & Sentry Wards -> Improved tooltips for new players (118074)
- Ancient Tango of Essifation -> Added buff icon
- Necronomicon -> Improved tooltip on level 3 Necronomicon
- Updated Buriza and Crystalis tooltips to list critical chance
- Removed Lumber from recipes, now it does not list it as a requirement and gives you a proper error
==[Game Modes & Commmands]==
- Adjusted starting gold in -rd to give you the same amount you’d have when the creeps come out in regular pick game (right now it is a little less than normal)
- Enabled POTM/Warlock/Alchemist in -lm and Warlock in -rd
- Added -om(onlymid) due to popular demand to disable creepspawn and tower vulnerability everywhere but middle
- Added -powerup and -neutrals to single player commands
- Added -nd (no death timer) and -lives xx (maximum lives) as optional commands after -dm is activated
- Added a -fleshstr command for Pudge to view how much str you gained from the ability
- Added -deathon/off (-don/off) that toggles on and off a new death timer to show you your respawn without needing to open the scoreboard
- -cson now places the k/d in the multiboard title
- -showdeny is enabled by default for observers
- Siege units are now properly added to your -cs
- Weather commands are now user specific, so you can have rain while your ally has snow and the others have nothing
- Added an extra blank line before -ma output, to help readability when used near other commands
==[Map & Misc Changes/Fixes]==
- Changed the way Aegis and Roshan work. Aegis is now a Roshan drop (a 1-charge ankh basically). You cannot create it manually. Roshan starts out weaker without melee return. He respawns stronger and bigger every 10 minutes
- Added a new secret shop containing limited items (only stout and helm of iron will for now) to the top left and bottom right areas
- Changed Range creep quantity upgrade from 60min to 45min. Siege follows this as well. Melee creeps quantity upgrade frequency changed to a few minutes sooner than usual
- Implemented a sound for when creeps spawn for the first time (75198)
- Chicken/Crow can no longer sell items (has been abused in long games to sell for money to buyback. The sellback price on recipes is only intended to be that high to help against misclicks)
- Removed internal usage of lumber resource
- Notification is sent when an observer leaves the game
- Added a game timer in the top interface
- Fog of War is removed when a team wins (111691)
- Illusion from runes lasts a little longer now (40->60)
- Removed internal usage of food resource
- Added cooldown to neutral creep ability tooltips
- When a player leaves, the leaver hero name is written after the player’s name
- Fixed Infernal duration typo on Rain of Chaos
- Fixed a typo in the Overgrowth damage
- Fixed First Blood being displayed in white if sp is on and observers are present
- Fixed Observer Ward buff saying Sentry Ward (123887)
- Fixed a bug in -sp that causes observer board to be removed
- Fixed a typo on the number of targets on level 3 Forked Lightning
- Fixed bugs with Aegis on Meepo
- Fixed Echo Slam damage doing less than advertised (7 less)
- Fixed a typo in level 3 Spirit Bear HP
- Changed all Brilliance Aura values from percentages to numbers since it isn’t really a percentage (it always worked like this, just the tooltips were misleading)
- Fixed Treant and Druid sound set (79352)
- Fixed a bug with Shadowraze killing wards
- Fixed some minor control issues with Timewalk
A Torrent Of Blood And Awesomeness: The Movie 300
March 10, 2007 | 4 Comments
I sat packed in the front corner of a theater last night with no popcorn, no candy, no soda; surrounded by excited teenage males, eager to see boobs and blood. My neck was arched and my body contorted in positions I didn’t know were possible just to watch a distorted view of the new movie, 300. My eyes rolled around like a steer before the slaughter as I waited for the movie to start…but previews first. Whoop-dee-doo. They were so-so…well…the Spider Man III trailer did rock my world but still didn’t drive away my discomfort.
The screen goes black.
I shift uncomfortably and moan.
The the title splatters across the screen in large, bloody letters. The theater squeals with delight, yet I sigh in my irritation at not having arrived sooner. I’m going to have the movie spoiled by my discomfort, I thought. And then the movie started and my mind was sucked away to ancient Sparta.
The movie was stunning visually, the artistry of the cinematography was truly amazing even at my front-of-the-theater vantage point. During combat scenes (and there are a lot of them), the stop-and-go effects of thrusts, bashes, blood flow, and gore really added a lot to the movie. Having not read the 300 comic I’ve nothing to compare the movie to, however, the story seemed solid…primary vocals from the characters on screen were battle cries and very eloquent “bravery” speeches, however, the movie was heavily narrated giving the viewers the feel they were watching a story rather than just a movie. Very well done.
Effects were sweet, although I have some issues with the various views presented in the scene where Xerxes and Leonidas parley. From the beginning of that scene, we see that Xerxes towers comically huge over Leonidas, yet the camera views during their conversation changed that perception. Darby O’Gill and the Little People did a better job of this effect.
And that was my only real complaint.
So good was the movie that my discomfort and irritation at my position within the theater dissolved into nothingness. One thing was quite funny about that theater room, however. The movie showed plenty of breasts and a very brief, non-graphic sex scene…As I mentioned before, I was surrounded by teenagers. That became readily obvious any time a boob flashed on screen as a ripple of snickers and jibes swept across the room. That was more humorous that annoying…was I ever that way?
I will definitely be seeing this movie again. When next I see the movie, I’ll make sure to secure a better position within the theater so I can experience the full effect in all its glory. If you have a chance to see this movie in the theater…do so. You won’t be disappointed.
For a little background on the movie, here’s some info pulled from Wikipedia:
I want to read the Graphic Novel now. :) I sure hope the other comic book/hero movies coming out this year are as good! This month is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then of course, Spider Man III and Transformers!
MyComic WordPress Plugin v0.5 Released!
March 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Last night I went into plugin fixing mode and have updated and released the latest version of the MyComic WordPress Plugin (download it here)! This new version is compatible with the latest version of WordPress (2.1.2) and it fixes/adds/changes a few things:
Bug Fixes:
- Error on plugin activation is fixed
- Fixed some inefficiencies with the comic nav display code
- Fixed some incompatibility errors with the new version of WordPress
- Correctly linked to the example MyComic CSS file
New Features/Updates:
- MyComic options menu has been relocated from the WordPress Options Tab to the WordPress Plugins Tab
- Users can choose to sort comic navigation by post_id or by comic id
Special thanks to all the people that left comments to poke/prod me to update the plugin. Thanks to Mosey for being my Beta Testing Guinea Pig.
MasterWish WordPress Plugin v1.5 Released!
March 8, 2007 | 7 Comments
MasterWish is happy to announce that there is a new version of the MasterWish Wordpress Plugin available for download! Get it here.
Bug Fixes:
- Images now display in lists
- Currency symbols now match what the list owner chooses in MasterWish
New Features/General Updates:
- Works in WordPress v2.1.2
- Plugin now uses MasterWish List XML rather than the List RSS to separate out elements (like Description, Price, Priority, etc) rather than piling them all in the RSS Description tag.
- MasterWish options menu has be relocated from the WordPress Options menu to the WordPress Plugins menu to allow for easier use for those without full Admin (i.e. in WordPress Mu)
- www.masterwish.com URL has been updated to masterwish.com
WTB Epic Flying Mount For 1 Butt Tattoo
March 5, 2007 | 4 Comments
World of Warcraft is permeating our lives and what we do to ourselves. Wow. This guy is truly one crazy dude. Read this quote from this member of the Garithos guild on the server of the same name.
I proposed to the members of Garithos.com (best website evar imo;) and the Garithos community at large, that if they donated a total of 4k gold, that I would get…
Garithos.com
Swallow or its going in your eye
tattooed on my arse.
Needless to say, the coolest bunch of mofos playing WoW, came up with the money, so I came up with the goods.
Wow. Just wow. Here’s the dude’s video:
