Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog: Act 1 Posted!
July 15, 2008 | 1 Comment
Joss Whedon’s much anticipated Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog has released Act 1 today! The singing, the dialog, and the plot are all awesome. Felicia Day, Neal Patrick Harris, and Nathan Fillion did an awesome job. I can’t wait until Act 2 on Thursday!
Check out Act 1 at the Official Dr. Horrible site!
Quest Software: Active Directory Recovery Video
June 20, 2008 | 2 Comments
While frittering our lives away on the internet, my friend Dan and I stumbled upon an ad by Quest Software that featured 3 dudes in funny outfits. We had to click…and this is what we found:
Dan tried to escape this Active Directory Recovery ad a few times but I made him stay…The masked guy at the end doing the robot made it all worth it.
Funny stuff :) Kudos to Quest Software!
Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
March 17, 2008 | 3 Comments
It appears that Joss Whedon - writer god that blessed us with Serenity - decided to write a sweet new masterpiece called “Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” during the writers strike! Felicia Day is saying that it is an internet Musical. Yup. Internet. Musical. w00t!
Joss writes:
The super villian - Doctor Horrible - will be played by Neil Patrick Harris. The hero - Captain Hammer - by Nathan Fillion, and the cute girl - Penny - will be played by one of my favorite YouTube stars: Felicia Day of The Guild!
Sadly there isn’t a ton out there regarding this epic musical, but I’ll be waiting and watching. Joss Whedon. Nathan Fillion. Felicia Day. Neil Patrick Harris. Awesome.
High Resolution YouTube Videos
March 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment
As reported by Slashdot, YouTube is rolling out high resolution video! Despite the fact that this feature isn’t fully implemented, for those of you that can’t wait - like myself - you can view the high-res versions simply by changing the URL like so:
Change This:
Into:
Yup! Just tack on &fmt=6 to the end of the YouTube video URLs and enjoy the high-res goodness.
Cybernet News additionally states:
Note: Alternatively you can add &fmt=18 and it will play the high-resolution version when available, otherwise it will play the regular version. Here’s a Greasemonkey script that will automatically add &fmt=18 onto the end of each YouTube URL.
Note: YouTube has millions of videos and this feature isn’t officially released…so it will take some time for the high-res feature to become available on many videos. But…the URL tweak is worth it if it means there is a chance the video is higher quality.
Star Wars: Blowed Stuff Upped
February 25, 2008 | 1 Comment
This little girl is awesome. She pretty much summed up Episode IV!
Star Wars: Episode 2 1/2
February 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment
On August 15th, 2008 Star Wars hits the big screen once more, but this time as an animated film titled “Star Wars: Clone Wars.” Animated? Yeah…sweet CG with an animation style that really turns me on. The film itself is geared as a kick-off for the upcoming Star Wars animated series of the same name that will be airing on Cartoon Network (and eventually TNT)…all of which takes place between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
Star Wars writes:
I am extremely excited to see both this movie and the animated series. The cinematics look amazing. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, check it out…it looks freaking awesome.
The fact that the new movie (and series) will be focusing on a larger cast of characters beyond Anakin’s storyline makes this The Clone Wars very appealing to me. We’ll see focuses on Kit Fisto, Ahsoka, Clone Trooper Rex, General Grevious, and many more. That is quite exciting to me! I’ll definitely be waiting in line on August 15th.
LOLCat Bible: In Ur Religionz Translatin Ur Wordz
January 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Need a way to introduce religion to your cats but people words are just too hard to understand? The LOLCat Bible is the answer. Written in a way that cats can understand using the handy dandy (and ever so entertaining) LOLSpeak made popular by the LOLCat images (often found at I Can Has Cheezeburger?).
Upon arriving at the LOLCat Bible you are greeted with this beautiful blessing:
Hai! Teh blessigs of teh Ceiling Cat b pwn u, lol! This is a translation wiki to get the entire Bible translated into kitty pidgin (the language of lolcats). Zotnix saw a link to a picture with this done to Genesis and thought, “Why not the whole darned book?” Well, here is that effort.
The project - done a la Media Wiki - is surprisingly far along with many more Bible verses translated than I would expect! It is important to note that, while this is a collaborative translation of the Bible with excellent attempts at retaining each verse’s meaning, a few words have been altered to give cats an easier time understanding the Bible’s typically human-geared contents. Some of those changes are as follows:
- Earth: urths
- God: Ceiling Cat
- Jesus: Jebus
- Sex: “HARBL GOES WHERE?”
- Heaven: Ceiling
- Sin: Invisible Error
- Blessing: Cheezburger
- Seriously: Srsly
Here are some of the sweet translations:
John 3:16
Psalms 23
- Ceiling Cat iz mai sheprd (which is funni if u knowz teh joek about herdin catz LOL.) He givz me evrithin I need.
- He letz me sleeps in teh sunni spot an haz liek nice waterz r ovar thar.
- He makez mai soul happi an maeks sure I go teh riet wai for him. Liek thru teh cat flap insted of out teh opin windo LOL.
- I iz in teh valli of dogz, fearin no pooch, bcz Ceiling Cat iz besied me rubbin’ mah ears, an it maek me so kumfy.
- He letz me sit at teh taebl evn when peepl who duzint liek me iz watchn. He givz me a flea baff an so much gooshy fud it runz out of mai bowl LOL.
- Niec things an luck wil chase me evrydai an I wil liv in teh Ceiling Cats houz forevr.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
- Cheezburger are pashient an kind, cheezburger no has jelusniss or showin offz, cheezburger no are OMGWTF when u step on its tail or turn on teh vacuum cleanr, but are basickly delishis.
- Cheezburger no insistzes on doin it rite, itz not pisst off alla tiem or rezentfluffle.
- Cheezburger DO NOT WANT inikwitee, but DO WANT teh troofs.
- Cheezburger putz up wiht all teh stuffz, beelivez all teh stuffz, hoepz for all teh stuffz. Cheezburger putz up wiht all teh stuffz. i sed that areddy.
Needless to say, I was ROFLCoptering all over the place.
As you browse around the wiki, if you find a scripture that isn’t translated yet and you wish to help out, make sure to follow their guidelines before posting! Heck, read them anyways because they are funny in and of themselves.
All told…a good find over the weekend!
Star Wars Pronunciations
December 30, 2007 | 5 Comments
Yeah, I’m a Star Wars fan. I’ve read over 50 Star Wars books, have played the CCG, the RPG - d6 AND d20, I’m a member of The Dark Jedi Brotherhood, and I do a lot of Star Wars art. As such, I encounter a number of Star Wars-y names/terms in writing that I make assumptions on their pronunciations. Then, days, months, or years later I find out that the actual pronunciation does not match mine and my brain implodes with frustration. In conversations with fellow Star Wars geeks, I find that many of them are wrong as well.
A little while back, I did some searching and found a nice list of Star Wars pronunciations over at StarWars.com. Here are a few that may help ease your frustrations:
- Asajj Ventress - ah-SAAZJ
- A’Sharad Hett - AA-shaa-raad
- Borsk Fey’lya - BORSK FAE-lee-yaa
- Caamasi - kaa-aa-MAH-see
- Corran Horn - KORR-runn
- Darth Caedus - KIE-duss (rhymes with “hide us”)
- dianoga - die-aa-NOE-gaa
- Elegos A’kla - ELL-ehh-goes AA-klaa
- eopie - ee-OE-pee
- Executor - igg-ZEKK-yoo-tur
- Honoghr - HONN-noe-gerr
- Ilum - ILL-umm
- Jabiim - jaa-BEEM
- Jacen Solo - JAE-senn
- Jorj Car’das - george CAR-dass
- Joruus C’baoth - joe-ROOS suh-BAE-oth
- Kir Kanos - KEER KAE-noes
- krayt dragon - KRATE
- Nar Shaddaa - NAR shah-DAA
- Noghri - NOE-gree
- Captain Pellaeon - PELL-lay-onn
- Tycho Celchu - TIE-koe SELL-choo
- Vergere - vur-ZJEER
- Prince Xizor - SHEE-zor
- Shi’ido - shee-EE-doe
- Ssi-ruuk - SEE-rook
- Twi’lek - TWEE-lekk
- Yevetha - yeh-VEE-thaa
- ysalamiri - ee-saal-aa-MEE-ree
- Ysanne Isard - ee-SAAN IE-sard
- Yuuzhan Vong - YOO-zaan
- Zonama Sekot - zoe-NAH-mah SEE-coat
Phrase Origin: Do Not Want
November 8, 2007 | 4 Comments
The phrase “Do not want” is one of endless amusement, now spoken often in my department when referring to anything bad or…well…unwanted. The phrase is brilliantly humorous and more so now that I know its accidental origin.
But where did this epic phrase come from? I found out yesterday that I had inadvertently blogged about the origin without even realizing it in titled Star Wars, Backstroke of the West. As I mentioned in my previous post, this was Star Wars Episode III recorded in theater, dubbed in Chinese, then subtitled in English off the Chinese dubbing…thus resulting in truly hilarious phrases, such as “Like, reach the man, Good good good let us counter-attacking.”; “The Presbyterian Church like enjoys you not.”; and of course: “Do not want”.
This gem that I’m focusing on in this post occurs when Anakin Skywalker - clad in his Darth Vader garb - learns of Padme’s death. In Episode III he yells: “Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!”, however, the skillfully done translation of the Chinese dubbing to English resulted in the beloved phrase: “Do not want.”
Beautiful. The world has seen this phrase’s real-world usefulness and has embraced it with open arms producing high-end content like the lolcats at I Can Has Cheez Burger:
Medicinal Maggot Therapy
November 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Contents:
Introduction
Recently, the mention of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) came up in my office as a way to make fun of Zach’s recent allergic reaction to some dry cleaning. Obviously, I was initially plotting which objects I would acquire upon his death, but when I realized that if he died, I would also gain his project list. My mind immediately went to treatments for the MRSA condition. Enter: Maggot Therapy.
Wikipedia states the following about Maggot Therapy:
What They Do
Mmmm…maggots writhing over open wounds and dissolving dead flesh. Sounds gross? Well…it is. But here’s the deal; they do 3 things that are helpful to wounds:
- Debride necrotic (dead) tissue from the wound. Dead tissue is a breeding ground for bacteria and can lead to gangrene.
- Secretions from the maggots kill numerous bacteria and many not killed by the secretions are ingested by the larva. This is the key component for use on people with MRSA simply because the maggots can kill the antibiotic-resistant bacteria that antibiotics cannot!
- Enhanced wound healing properties. Maggot secretions have been shown by some instances to “amplify the epidermal growth factor.”
This source states that “Historically, maggots have been known for centuries to help heal wounds. Many military surgeons noted that soldiers whose wounds became infested with maggots did better — and had a much lower mortality rate — than did soldiers with similar wounds not infested.”
Limitations
Despite the awesome properties of disinfected fly larva, there are some limitations on maggot therapy as Wikipedia states:
- Maggots have a short shelf life which prevents long term storage before use.
- Patients and doctors may find maggots distasteful, although studies have shown that this does not cause patients to refuse the offer of maggot therapy. Maggots can be enclosed in opaque polymer bags to hide them from sight.
- Dressings must be designed to prevent any maggots from escaping, while allowing air to get to the larvae. Dressings are also designed to minimize the uncomfortable tickling sensation that the maggots often cause.
- The maggots are sometimes painful to patients with ischemic wounds, possibly because they anchor to the tissue.
Now, if you have a nasty, gaping, non-healing wound, I’d highly urge you to not go to the nearest trash heap and start applying any larvae that can be found lurking amongst the waste. The US Food and Drug Administration currently regulates maggots as a prescription only device, and as I stated before, the maggots used are “clean” maggots provided by Medicinal Maggot Companies like Monarch Labs or Zoo Biotic.
Other Sources
Overall, the disgusting baby flies are suddenly a little cooler. If you want to read up a bit more on the topic, check out this this NY Times article, or this document or this one.
Videos
Text is nice…but videos are awesome:
National Geographic Video
Of course, you could always watch this National Geographic video (note: don’t watch this over lunch):
Testimonials
Additionally, here’s a testimonial of a guy that risked amputation of his leg from a serious knee infection that refused to heal…maggot therapy helped him nicely. His description of the whole process is really detailed informative. This testimonial video is an account of a woman whose feet were saved a from amputation. Pretty awesome stuff.
Facebook Is Better Than Porn
November 4, 2007 | 3 Comments
Time has an interesting article that states that Generation Y craves electronic social networking more than electronic porn. Stating:
Facebook and those involved with OpenSocial must love the thought of such numbers. Now I’m beginning to see why Facebook is worth billions of dollars. (as opposed to billions of monkeys) Who’d have thought buddy lists and comment walls would beat down nudity and sex. The pornography industry must be shaking in their shoes.
Halloween: A Day With Black Sclera Contacts
October 31, 2007 | 1 Comment
Contents:
Intro
Two years ago I rocked the house with a sweet Scooby Doo costume. Last year I was a Ninja (but aren’t I always?). This year was a bit different…a bit more traditional/spooky/subtle. Black Sclera contacts.
For those of you that don’t know and are slightly curious, Sclera Contacts are contacts that cover…well…the sclera:
My Experience
Overall, I have been very happy with my contacts once I learned how to put them in. The look is just creepy and causes double-takes of passerby. At the Halloween party that I attended and throughout the day at work while the contacts were in place, I got just the right amount of surprise, disgust, averted eyes, and laughs to make it all worth while.
Thank god that I have a MacBook Pro with a webcam on it because the contacts have popped out a number of times and had no desire to use public bathrooms for contact insertion (in the off chance they fell on the floor). Setting the webcam’s properties, my monitor becomes a handy dandy electronic mirror! w00t!
Here’s a quick little video of me with my Sclera in place at home along with fake teeth from Dental Distortions:
What few know is how long it took me to learn to put these quarter-sized contacts into my head. To just get one in, it took me over an hour and a half of actual attempting split up by searches online and questions to contact wearing friends for help. It wasn’t until I found this awesome video that I actually learned how to insert the little suckers. Kudos to whoever it was that threw that puppy together.
The Drawbacks
Despite the cool factor…there are some drawbacks.
- Comfort…or Lack Thereof
- Prescription
- Price
- Installation into head
Comfort…or Lack Thereof
Because the contacts that I ordered are not custom fit (few Theatrical Sclera Contacts are), there is some level of discomfort that comes and goes with increasing frequency the longer you wear them. I find myself adjusting the contacts throughout the day to ensure optimal visibility and minimize the blurriness caused by creases that creep up due to my eye being a bit too small for the contact’s diameter of 22mm.
Prescription
A prescription is required even for non-corrective lenses because contacts are a “medical device.” Fine fine…I’d understand that if they were custom fit for my eyes (which they aren’t, typically) and corrective. But stock sizes and non-corrective shouldn’t require a prescription. The lame part about that is…even though you are required to have a prescription, if they cannot contact your eye doctor within 3 days, the order is processed anyways. Such is life, I suppose.
Price
Sclera lenses cost an arm and a leg. I set my sights (pun intended) on these contacts last halloween and saved accordingly. The lenses I purchased cost $128 a lens. Yup. Per lens. The enjoyment is worth it though (at least that’s what I keep telling myself).
Installation In To Head
As I mentioned before, putting these quarter sized objects on top of my eyes was very difficult at first taking a good 10 minutes per eye once I finally knew how to put them in (thanks to this awesome video). Never having worn contact lenses before made this very complicated for me. Now that I have removed and inserted them a number of times I can do so with little irritation and typically on the first or second try (sometimes third if I have no mirror).
Basically what needs to be done is this:
- Wash your hands
- Clean the contacts
- Make sure the contact lens is not inside out (an inside-out contact lens flares out along the edges)
- Place the ridiculously huge contact on the tip of your index finger and middle finger of your dominant hand, curved side down (of course)
- Hold your upper eyelid up with your non-dominant hand just enough for you to slip the edge of the contact under your eyelid with your dominant hand (index and middle fingers).
- Next, basically wiggle and shove the contact up under your lid (opening your other eye and looking into a mirror to check your progress is key) until the majority of the contact is shoved under the lid. This can fill like shoving a handful of gravel in your eye, but that passes quickly.
- As soon as you notice that the contact is sufficiently shoved under your upper lid, release that lid with your non-dominant hand and pry your lower lid down and over the lower part of the contact lens.
- At this point, depending on how sensitive your eye is, you may need to close your eye tightly to get your bearings because it may still hurt at this point. Keep it closed until you feel you can open your eye just enough to wiggle the contact around on your eye to get it in place. This gets easier and less painful each time you do it.
- The end. w00t. If you are doing two contact lenses…I’d suggest doing the eye opposite your dominant hand. (if you are right handed, do your left eye first and vice versa). That worked out better for me.
Getting Halloween Sclera Contacts
If you are totally pumped and want your own, you can pick up some Theatrical/Movie/Halloween Sclera (sometimes called full-eye) contacts at a number of places:
- FXEyes
- Coastal Contacts
- ExtremeSFX
- etc…just search for on the interwebs and you should find a supplier.
Squirrel vs. Sunflower
October 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment
My wife grew some sunflowers this year and near the end of the growing season, a friendly squirrel began to visit and relieve us of the flower heads. I captured the above picture of our friend the squirrel taking a break from actually mowing down the top of the sunflower prior to its removal from the stem.
Below is a photo that Abby took of that same squirrel with his quarry on a post. As he munches, petals fly and we mourn the loss of our flowers. Yesterday I pulled the ~18 head-less stalks from our garden.
Automattic Acquires Gravatar!
October 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment
In a surprising move, Automattic has acquired Gravatar, which was announced this morning in Gravatar’s new WordPress installation. This breathes life into a quality idea that had floundered due to fast popularity and (I can only assume) poor funding.
For those of you that don’t know what Gravatar is:
I became a fan of Gravatar during my first launch of the SexyComments WordPress Plugin and was saddened at the instability and slowness of the avatar service after a few months of usage. My frustration grew so much that I looked to MyBlogLog as an avatar service despite its lack of features. As of release 1.4 of SexyComments, I had almost entirely wiped my hands of Gravatar.
Until now. Gravatar once again serves up avatars in the comments of this site and am excited at the changes that have already taken place:
- They have transferred the Rails application and most of the avatar serving to their WordPress.com infrastructure and servers.
- Avatar serving is now more than three times as fast, and works every time.
- They have moved the Gravatar blog from Mephisto to WordPress. :D
Additionally, I look forward to the features that Automattic is planning for Gravatar’s future:
- They’re going to make all of the Premium features free, and refund anyone who bought them in the last 60 days.
- Move the gravatar serving to a Content Delivery Network so not only will they be fast, it’ll be low latency and not slow down a page load.
- Take the million or so avatars that exist on WordPress.com and make them available through the Gravatar API, to compliment the 115k already hosted at Gravatar.
- From Gravatar, integrate them into all WordPress.com templates and bring features like multiple avatars over.
- From WordPress.com, bring the bigger sizes (128px) over and make that available for any Gravatar. Currently Gravatars are only available up to 80px.
- Allow Gravatar profile pages with Microformat support for things like XFN
rel="me"and hCard. - Develop a new API that has cleaner URLs and allows Gravatars to be addressed by things like URL in addition to (or instead of) email addresses.
- Rewrite the application itself (site.gravatar.com) to fit directly into our WordPress.com grid, for internet-scale performance and reliability.
All in all, this made me pee my pants a little.
Kruger National Park: Buffalo vs Lions vs Crocodiles
August 10, 2007 | 7 Comments
Jason Schlosberg and David Budzinski, from National Geographic, found themselves in an amazing filming opportunity in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. While filming at a watering hole, a group of lionesses attacked a young water buffalo, throwing him into the water. As the lionesses began to drag the buffalo out, a crocodile found interest in the situation and snapped at the lions and young calf.
The lions struggled to keep their meal by pulling the poor calf onto dry ground only to be met by a rescue squad…the entire herd of water buffalo! Angered by the attack on their calf, the water buffalo sprang into action, executing ninja like moves on the unsuspecting lionesses; chasing, kicking, and flinging. Check it out:
The capture of such footage was quite amazing. This exhibited a protectiveness that I had grown to think was not present due to the numerous other herd-footage documentaries. From what I had seen in the past, when lions attacked and grabbed a young one, the herd would typically give up the young for dead. Not this time! Go Water Buffalo! w00t w00t!
Thanks to Dee for telling me about this video!
