Play One on TV

From the “things that make you go HUH?” department: McDonalds Corporation’s website for Asian youth.

While I’ll readily admit that I’m no longer a youth, I do have an Asian/Pacific Islander heritage. I even lived on Guam during high school. So why do I look at this supposedly-Asian bedroom and all I can think is IKEA?

Must be the fault of those darned Swedish-Asians again.

(Via Electric Venom.)

A television pay-per-view experience will bring you the ghost of John Lennon.

If you’re waiting for the punchline, it’s no joke. But it will cost you $9.95 to find out what he said. That’s the joke, and it’ll be on you if you’re gullible enough to buy into it.

Besides, my brother Mike has already scooped the story. Read it for yourself and save your money for that Wrestlemania title championship coming at the end of the month.

Are you web surfing at work when you should be collating, or filing, or other such nonsense? Keep this boss page handy in your shortcuts and you’ll never be exposed.

From the web page of author Jasper Fforde. Link sorta kinda via Dustbury.

Happy Birthday to Dustbury! Drop by and congratulate Charles Hill on ten years of quality web presence (and ignore his humble protests, which are part and parcel of his charm.)

I’ve had the privilege of knowing Charles for much longer than the life of his website. Charles and I are veterans of that grand predecessor to the Internet community know as “Bulletin Board Systems”, or BBS for short.

Back in the halcyon days of the early 1980’s (when men were men, except for heavy metal rockers) most computer-based socialization took place in two venues: the hideously expensive Compuserve and its imitators (including Quantumlink, the predecessor to America Online), and on local BBS systems. A BBS system was simply a computer that was attached to an incoming phone line, acting as a dedicted message base and email processor. BBS’s were small one-computer affairs, usually run by hobbyists on a limited budget, and could only handle one caller at a time. However, they were free and thus were incredibly more popular in my household than any of the online services.

During this time, there were several quality BBS’s available in Oklahoma City. Each was a labor of love (or at least obsessive-compulsiveness) as the computers of the era did not multitask — making your personal computer into a BBS was an expensive and time-consuming proposition. Each BBS attracted it’s own sort of clientele, kind of like bars but without the alcohol (not that you could tell). It wasn’t uncommon for each BBS to have 10-20 “regulars” that tended to set the tone for the discussions, be they political, humorous, cultural, technical, juvenile, or even downright silly.

Amidst this early noise and confusion, a few writers tended to stand out through the quality of their posts, and Charles was one of the most noticeable. He went by a variety of pseudonyms (which we called “handles”, a la the old CB radio lingo) but I knew him mostly as “Nick Danger — Third Eye”. At one point, I would have sworn he had a twin sister, but that assumption was quickly corrected the first time I met her… er, him in person.

Nick Danger’s voice was a beacon of wit and complete sentences in a wilderness of electronic noise. It didn’t matter what the topic — music appreciation, global warming, computer brand wars (my computer is better than your computer), or whether or not L. Ron Hubbard actually wrote Mission Earth — “Nick” never failed to deliver a heavy dose of smarts, charm, and knowledge with each and every post. The depth of his knowledge was astounding, and the volume of his output was intimidating. Although I sound like a fawning fanboy, I can honestly say that Nick Danger was one of the primary reasons I continued to frequent local BBS’s. Of course, I don’t have to worry about describing the impact of his writing, as his web page is more than description enough.

I wandered off the BBS scene in the early 1990’s, much to the relief of my wife, who wanted her telephone line back. By that time, the BBS community had discovered networking, and message bases that previously sported 30 users were now seeing posts from ten times that many. It was impossible to have a personal conversation with 300 people, so I sadly unplugged the modem and went on with my life.

It was with great joy that I found the Dustbury site in the latter 1990’s. Knowing that it was an Oklahoma website, I recognized Charles’ inimitable style and verbal animation long before I spotted his name at the bottom of the page. I have been a regular reader ever since, even after his conversion to this weird blogging thing.

So, it is with fondness and some nostalgia for “the good old days” that I wish Dustbury a happy 10th anniversary, and hopes for many more anniversaries to come. If men are measured by their influence in the lives of others, then there aren’t enough yardsticks in Home Depot to measure the length of Charles’ influence on his readers.

May his keyboard never caplock!

Are you tired of calling tech support numbers in India? Has your job ever been outsourced overseas? Are you ticked off about it?

Apparently, so are the people that made this short film. Yes, it makes fun of some stereotypes, but like most good satire, it has just enough truth to make it freaking hilarious. Get thee hence and watch!

Apparently, I’ve been tagged for a viral experiment of sorts. Specifically, it’s called The Indie Virus, also known as “the virus you want to catch.”

Now before you go leaping for the Lysol, let me explain. This is kind of like a meme — it’s a viral linking campaign from the mind of Chris Pearson at Pearsonified. You can read more about it here, but suffice to say that I’m supposed to link to someone else’s blog article with the anchor text “The Indie Virus.” Rumor has it that if I do this 100 times, Bill Gates will send me free tickets to Walt Disney World. Or maybe I’ll get free Viagra.

Free Viagra at Disney World? Shudder. I mean, like most American males, I once had the hots for Cinderella, but that was before puberty, for Pete’s sake.

This is the fault of Chilihead at Don’t Try This at Home. Remind me to… er, thank her later.

Naturally, I’ll pick on my brother. If your going to give someone a virus, it might as well be family. So click on The Indie Virus and take a gander at Mike’s take on cabbies and the tourists they prey upon.

The whole kerfluffle over Walgreens and the professionalism of their pharmacy staff does not surprise me. I was a Walgreens customer for several years, having them fill my synthetic thyroid supplement (I don’t have a thyroid gland) as well as the hundreds of thousands of medications required to raise a child in modern America (including the occasional medication for the child.)

I never found any personally disparaging remarks on my own pharmacy paperwork, but I was less than impressed with Walgreens’ ability to competently fill a prescription. I cannot remember how many times I called in a refill, waiting about 48 hours, and then went in only to be told the item was out of stock or “on the way.”

I finally switched to Albertson’s pharmacy to reduce my “standing and arguing at the pharmacy” hours. What really iced the cake is that they saved me $10 a month. My thyroid hormone prescription is at an unusual level — .25 milligrams daily — and most pharmacies don’t stock this esoteric size. Walgreens filled this by giving me two bottles, one at .20 mg and one at .5 mg, charging me a separate insurance co-pay for each bottle. The Albertsons pharmacist took a look at my bottles and asked me, “Why didn’t they just give you a doubled amount of .125 pills? One bottle means only one copay.”

Why indeed? The only answers that come to mind involve the words unimaginative ripoff sons of so-and-so’s, but those are the kinds of comments that got Walgreens in trouble in the first place, so I’ll exercise some restraint. Like I have time for a class-action lawsuit.

Via Lynn and Chaz.

Congratulations. It’s a blogger.

My brother has opened up his own blog home. Go over and give a gander at He Likes It - Hey Mikey. Mike is just starting out, but he’s already written up quite a storm of material. He’s coming up with things that I jealously wish I’d thought of first.

Aside from an odd penchant for Barry Manilow tunes (and I hasten to add that this is not my fault) he’s a pretty clever guy. I’m sure he gets it from me.

Welcome to the blogosphere, little bro. Don’t let the spammers get you down.

From my old high-school buddy Walsfeo, who is currently attending graduate school back east:

If you add the words “in your trunk” to the end of the question “at what point will a freezing can of Dr. Pepper Burst” the answer becomes much more important.

And they say you never learn anything practical in grad school.

Editors note: The link does contain a truly bizarre avatar graphic that is NSFW (not safe for work) but you have to scroll down a bit to see it. You have been warned.

I remember back in 1998 when everyone was calling Matt Drudge the “new face of journalism” (and many other much-more colorful names). Since then, blogs have been hailed as some sort of Second Coming of Righteous Journalism, here to teach big media the error of its ways.

Me? I wasn’t buying it. “Poppycock,” I would scoff (or “Fiddle-Faddle” if the store was out of Poppycock). Amateur gossip mongers replacing the venerable fourth estate? Never! This particular web surfer swore he would never rely on mere bloggers as a primary news resource.

Never name that well from which you will not drink.

You may remember that I was recently brainwashed into becoming a Hornets fan. This evening, I found myself wondering how the Boys from Big Easy fared in tonight’s game. This was their first showing in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina gave them the longest “away” tour in NBA history.

So where did I go for my “primary news source” — Sports Illustrated? NBA.com? ESPN? Nope — I went to Dustbury. Yes, I went to a mere blogger (albeit a very good mere blogger) for my news fix. I won’t say that the earth shook, but my desk might have bobbled once or twice.

So much for the strength of my convictions. If anyone has any dead crows laying around, I’ll gladly eat them along with my words.

PS: If I’m not mistaken, Dustbury scooped The Oklahoman (a real newspaper… sort of) by several minutes. Not too shabby!

PPS: The Hornets lost.

With the restlessness and uncertainty in today’s world, one can easily fall prey to feelings of helplessness and despair. Will we work out our problems? Will my child have a world to grow up in? Will I die before Jack Bauer?

If this describes you, then take heart that the International Earth-Destruction Advisory Board is there to keep you advised. From their mission statement:

The International Earth Destruction Advisory Board (IEDAB) is an independent scientific institution which monitors the current status of the Earth and the number of times it has been destroyed. In the event of the Earth being destroyed it will be the IEDAB’s job to relay this information to people who need to know and provide advice on how to proceed.

The IEDAB is funded entirely by charitable donations.

Thanks to the efforts of this noble organization, you need not fear being surprised or embarassed by the unexpected destruction of the Earth.

Play One on TV supports the rights of its readers to fair and balanced coverage of this important statistic. Henceforth, our sidebar will feature a graphic that is directly linked to the IEDAB. It will always reflect the Current Earth Status, which at the time of this writing is GREEN.

It is my hope that this will demonstrate this site’s committment to the application of science in the public interest.

Via Multiple Mentality.

Lynn got me hooked on a blog called 75 Degrees South. The title refers to a measure of latitude. For those of you not up to speed on your geography or geometry, that’s way, way, way down south. In Antarctica, to be precise.

75 Degrees South is the personal journal of a scientist who has spent the last two years working for the British Antarctic Survey at Halley Station, situated on the Brunt Ice Shelf. I’d tell you where it is in relation to the rest of the world, but I can’t — being an ice shelf, it’s constantly in motion.

That’s just the first of many amazing tidbits about life at the bottom of the world. The author, Simon Coggins, regales his readers with engrossing stories, incredible photography, and a glimpse into the mindset of your average Antarctic resident.

Unfortunately, I found this blog towards the end of Mr. Coggin’s tour of duty. Still, there’s over two years of archived entries to peruse, which should be enough to satisfy anyone’s penguin lust (with apologies to Berkeley Breathed).

In particular, the stories about Antarctic camping have me frozen to the spot (rim shot). I’ll never complain about cold-weather camping again.

David recently highlighted a Marketleap site that claims to rate your “Link Popularity.” Being ever the glutton for punishment, I submitted my site to see what could happen. I opted for a check in the “Humor” category, if for no other reason than I wanted to see how much market share I was stealing from Dilbert.

At first, I was quite pleased to find myself listed as having an “average presence.” But a careful scrutiny of the chart quickly revealed that “average” isn’t in the middle of the chart — it’s at the start. The “participation trophy” meets the blogosphere.

To make myself feel better, I took a glance at the heavy hitters and found the expected players — engrish.com, comedycentral.com, theonion.com, and yes, dilbert.com.

What was astounding was that all of these sites, even Dilbert, were trumped by none other than whitehouse.gov. That’s right — our Commander-in-Chief is raking in the laughs by the bucketfull.

This strikes me as a bit unsporting. After all, we’ve already seen the lengths that they’ll go for a laugh — it’s easy to be funny when you have diplomatic immunity.

Jessa would like to everyone to know that this is Darwin Week. Natural selection turned 197 years old last Sunday

Charles points out that this is National Condom Week, and reminds us that condom use “prevents something or other, and also protects against something else, though it’s not, you know, ironclad or anything.”

In related news, Bill O’Reilly’s head explodes on national television.

I will not be writing anything humorous or disrespectful about the hunting accident involving Vice-President Dick Cheney. I like to think that I am above that sort of petty and heartless wisecracking over the misfortunes of others.

(This is the part where you say, “Yeah, right!”)

However, I am not above linking to someone else’s joke. And it’s a Top Ten list, too!

When drawing these moral lines of mine, I always try to use erasable ink.

Via Matt Deatherage.

If you laugh out loud at this, you might be a real geek.

Via Dustbury.

P.S.: I laughed out loud. My wife did not. Thus goes the depth of the great divide in my household.

Carnival of the Vanities #177 is now up at Carnival of the Capitalists. With so many iterations of the word “carnival” I was truly relieved to find no sign of Kathie Lee Gifford.

Webmaster Jay has put together a good variety of submissions from throughout the blogosphere. Recommended: a guide to changing the world and yourself, one small moment at a time.

So hop on over and do some reading already.

Back in December, I highlighted some “revised” movie trailers that cast The Shining as a happy-go-lucky family film and Big as a depraved descent into forbidden love.

My alternate-universe contacts have unearthed another gem. In today’s in-basket, Wizbang presents the trailer for Brokeback to the Future. Link is safe for work, but don’t watch while drinking anything unless you want it up your nose.

Link via David.

Carnival of the Vanities 176 is now posted at INCITE. He actually calls it the “4,897th edition.” I imagine the real host of the 4,897th edition in 2095 might take issue with this casual hijacking of numbers, but that’s a problem for another generation.

Spotted a couple gems in this collection, although there’s lots more where these came from:

• Do you love words? I do! Testing the Cultural Divide takes people like me to task, defining that fine line between high vocabulary and high readability. I was going to say how serendipidous it was to find this article, but I’ll settle for “she talk real good.”
• I once wrote a web page for my church back in the mid-1990’s. Thank God (literally) that it was eventually replaced by a more professional approach. Pity the poor fellow at Multiple Mentality, who discovered that old pages can come back to haunt you.

Dan deconstructs the Ameritrade commercials.

If this is what passes for shrewd investment practice in today’s financial world, I’m pulling out of my 401k plan. Anyone know where I can find about 22 coffee cans? Or maybe a large mattress?

The 175th weekly edition of the Carnival of the Vanities is now up at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

Some of my personal favorites from this week’s selection:

• I remember the Iranian Hostage Crisis, but January 20, 1981 tells a couple of stories I haven’t heard before.
• Nurses are people, too. They eat, drink, love, laugh, and play devastatingly morbid practical jokes on each other.
• Steven Silvers tells what happens when the Internet generation wakes up and realizes what is meant by the phrase “your past may come back to haunt you.”
• Jack Bauer is tougher than Chuck Norris, according to The Nose on Your Face.
• Thinking of switching political parties? Multiple Mentality has some life experience to share with you.
• Finally, my favorite for grossest thing I’ve read all week: Gym Nauseam.

Plus, I may have (ahem) submitted a teensy-weensy little post of my own. Modesty forbids.

Customized tote bag that says “Everything you do can and will be used as blog material.” Cost: $15.99

Gift wrap, birthday card, and bandwidth to blog about the gift. Cost: $8.95 + .05 per mb

Showing off the bag to friends, only to find out later that the URL at the bottom of the bag is an advertisement for a porn site. Cost: Priceless.

As told by Chilihead and Shannon.

Independent networks UPN and WB will be putting themselves out of misery shutting down this fall to make way for a new merged network called The CW.

Ever the wit of sharpness, Charles presents the top ten network names rejected before they came up with “the CW”. I’m a sucker for a good top ten list.

According to the article, The CW plans to air “30 hours of programming seven days a week aimed in part at young audiences.” 30 hour days, eh? Let’s hope those young audiences can’t do math.

See Dan.

See Dan watch C-Span.

See Dan watch a political debate on C-Span.

See Dan watch a Canadian political debate on C-Span.

Watch, Dan, watch.

See Joe fall asleep for 102 years.

Check out the 174th edition of the Carnival of the Vanities, hosted by Free Money Finance. I lost track of this post-collective for a couple of weeks due to a change in management (due more to my lack of organizational skills than any failing on the part of the carnival management.)

Did you ever bite into a Rice Krispie treat and thought it tasted like plastic? You have no idea.

So, kids, which one of these toys would you rather have in your stocking? The Jesus Action Figure, or the Deluxe Jesus Action Figure?

While buyers on a budget will go for the no-frills Savior, I’m willing to bet that most of you are tempted (no pun intended) to spring for the fully Deluxe version, complete with bread loaves, wine jug, and fish.

Take my advice and save yourself some dough (again, no pun intended) and get the cheaper Jesus. After all, He can make His own bread, wine and fish anytime He wants.

Of course, it might not hurt if you have other action figures to feed (in suitable increments of 4000 or 5000).

Link via Lynn.

I never hesitate at an opportunity to poke some fun at my Japanese heritage. Hence this link to a mockumentary on sushi dining etiquette. Thanks to Dan and Anji for the pointer!

Note to those that might be tempted to treat my mother the way “traditional” Japanese men treat their women — she’s had a couple of decades to become “Americanized.” Try that samurai heritage crap on her and she’ll use your lungs for the next sushi plate.

The 170th edition of the Carnival of the Vanities is now playing at Ravenwood’s Universe. Plenty of good Christmas reading to be had. Give it a hit or two.

David offers a sampling of Christmas carols for the mentally-afflicted. My favorite:

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder —Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells…

If Christmas is driving you crazy, be comforted by the fact that the carols will accompany you into the rubber room.