Yeah... I've been slacking for a while. I guess such is to be expected during the eventful holiday season. Speaking of which, I had my first Thanksgiving away from my beloved NH last week. Although I truly missed all of my dear friends over "Drunksgiving" (as the Hippo Press calls it), it was incredible making new memories and trying new things. Like cooking my own turkey for the first time! It doesn't take a movie buff or film critic to know that EVERY holiday movie/sitcom has a scene where some fool ruins the turkey. Well I am here to tell you that you pretty much have to be a moron to mess up cooking a turkey. With a few simple (and I mean simple) instructions, I was able to cook a delicious bird in just under 2 hours. And yeah, it WAS that easy. Hopefully next year I can tackle something more challenging, like perpetual motion.
In addition to my newfound superhero cooking abilities, it was most wondrous to be joined by my sister Laura, as well as my sister Kate, my niece Elliot, and my honorary BIL Matt for an almost-true family Thanksgiving. Having them all here with me made my NH-related nostalgia melt away in a flash, and it couldn't have gone better.
However, please don't think this Drunksgiving was all sappy, feel good moments. From the insane membrane of one Jaden Herrin came an incredibly amusing/annoying prank. I could tell you more, but it might spoil the fun. Make sure you check back for the next update which will have the prank documented in all its one-way screw glory.
With the Boulder Mountain Star shining bright, it's only a matter of minutes before Christmas is upon us. Most of us could always use a bit more dolo in the wallet during the winter festivities, which leads me to my first link. The first time I saw this link about a month ago, I thought it was just another blip on the radar, and a rather lame one at that. But lo and behold, NEVER underestimate the power of the almighty interwebs. This kid basically wanted to make a million dollars by selling ad space on his website. Here's the catch: each pixel cost $1.00. So basically, to take out the smallest ad possible (10px by 10px), it will cost you $100.00. What would appear to be an exercise in bad marketing has turned this UK gent into a wealthy man overnight. Currently, he has sold over $700,000 worth of ad space on his 'piece of Internet history'. For an insider view of what it's like to become an instant Internet baller, check out his blog . I'm not sure I can validate spending the money, but this link is making the rounds and many people are reaping the benefits. It would appear that the lad will in fact make his one million, and perhaps more. I just wish looking at the page didn't give me an aneurism.
I've come across some really interesting things in the last few days, but I am going to try and spread them out over a span of a few more. First up is a blast from the past dealing with the future. The year is 2004. Imagine you have an assignment to create a multimedia presentation imagining the future in 10 years.
This mockumentary was produced last year by journalists Matt Thompson of the Fresno Bee and Robin Sloan of Current, a new-ish cable news channel in San Francisco. 999 chances out of a 1000, you won't come up with something as good as the link below. If you are a tech/Internet nerd and you haven't seen this, you might want to re-evaluate your life.
Yeah I stole this from StileProject! What of it?
Recently, I was fortunate enough to be the grateful recipient of a brand new Dell Inspiron 9300 notebook computer. It was given to me as a graduation/new job present from the dopest mom in the universe, also known as Mrs. P. So fast forward a bit, I am on my fourth reboot and when Windows starts, up pops a message from Sonic (the CD burning software installed w/ my PC). It says that in order to install the Sonic updates, I need to insert the "Sonic Update Manager" disk.
To the world's amusement, my Dell shipped with NO DISKS whatsoever. The new Dell PCs shipped have a utility program that acts as a reformatter/resetter in place of the operating system disk (designed to prevent piracy, and quiet the hungry beast Microshaft). So obviously, there is no Sonic disk either.
As any good citizen would, I got my ass on the cellular and called Dell tech support. For the sake of brevity, let's just say that my customer service experience was less than satisfactory, perhaps atrocious. Near the end of my three hour ordeal, I decided to experiment and log onto Dell's internet-based chat help page. While I was waiting for a reply on the chat program, my problem was finally solved on the phone. My Sonic CD was on the way.
Unfortunately for the guy on the other end of the chat program, I was still pretty frustrated and looking for retribution. The conversation begins while I was still on hold on the phone, so it starts legitimately, but soon evolves into a bash session. Check the full chat text out below:
A quick briefing concerning two animated pictures I just cooked up. Serious thanks to Alex's swift shutter snapping skills, essential in snaring the first sequence of snapshots. All three are pretty big, and pop into a new window.
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