DrikoLand: random musings of a child of the '80s

Brazil is starting to package medicine as candy so that children that have trouble swallowing pills or are just stubborn will be more likely to take it. I just see this as a gigantic accident waiting to happen; the first time some child OD's on "candy" we'll hear about this. In fact, as usual this reminds me of a Simpsons episode: they went to a candy convention and the sign outside read "Welcome Candy Convention Room 1! Also Candy-Shaped Rat Poison Convention Room 11."

Wired has a cool article on LucasFilm Foley artists that record the sounds for video games using everyday household items, all sorts of hardware, and whatever else their "active ears" can imagine as something else.

Update: I'm working on the layout of the blog and will eventually convert it to my main page rather than have a separate blog page. I'll try and remember to e-mail my "regular" viewers once I've done this, but even if I don't I'll leave a placemaker page once I make the move. I'm not sure I like the scheme just yet, and I see some cross-browser issues, so things may be a little out of place until I figure them out. I really hate dealing with Internet Explorer, but web logs show that about 80% of my hits come from IE, so I guess I have to accommodate them. Also, earlier versions of Netscape aren't working out as well either because of some of the CSS formatting, although I've minimized the problem as best as I can for now. For those of you wavering, download Mozilla, the open source browser from Netscape! It has the best HTML and CSS support out of all the browsers out there, and it might just piss Bill Gates off a little.

Anyway, comments and suggestions are welcome and appreciated!

Playboy's 'Women of Enron' issue hit the stands. But it's tastefully done and not at all exploitive. Yeah, right. Still...

Follow-up: As I figured, quite a furor was caused by a Federal Appeals Court decision that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional. Bipartisan condemnation of this decision seems to be the trend of the day, ranging from "This is the worst kind of political correctness run amok" (Republican Senator Christopher Bond) to "Just nuts" (Democratic Senator Tom Daschle). However, I do think that it was particularly cheesy to hear that House members gathered on the Capitol steps to recite the Pledge Of Allegiance; that's almost as bad as their horrible rendition of "God, Bless America" after 9/11.

The Federal Appeals Court basically disagreed with a lower court's ruling that "the ceremonial reference to God in the pledge does not convey endorsement of particular religious beliefs." Once again, I agree with this statement and see no reason why it should have been overturned.

On a related topic, a CNN interview with the litigant that brought suit in the first place shows how myopically he views the world. When asked whether "In God we trust" should be removed from all U.S. currency his reply was "Absolutely." He also admitted his daughter was not ostracized in school for being an atheist or not reciting the Pledge, but that "My daughter is in the lawsuit because you need that for standing." So the original basis for the suit is not even valid. Hmmm....

The first photograph ever taken was captured by French inventor Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826, who called it a "heliograph." Pretty cool...

Wow, those South Koreans can be pretty cruel. Soccer fans came up with pretty imaginative signs for their game against Germany, comparing the "turtle boat" South Korean team with the "rusty tank" German team. Sticks and stones...

Tired of losing at Monopoly? Then visit this Monopoly strategy guide and kick ass next time you play.

A Stockhold fashion retailer has launched wear-once paper panties as a summer clothing item. I don't see this at all, but according to the designer, "Many guys don't change their underpants every day. It would be perfect to sell paper underpants at petrol stations." OK, we'll put that into the "cons" column for Stockholm as a honeymoon destination.

Because of lackluster sales of his latest album,"Invincible," Michael Jackson is deeply in debt to Sony. There's only one thing to do! The King of Pop has summoned Al Sharpton and Johnnie Cochran to his cause. How ludicrous. His main claim is that his album was not promoted heavily enough, but it's pretty obvious to me that people have finally realized that not only has Michael Jackson turned into a freak but also that his music hasn't been any good for, oh, 15 years.

A federal appeals court ruled the Pledge Of Allegiance unconstitutional because of the words "under God." I think that this interpretation of church versus state is ludicrously stringent and agree with the government's view that "the religious content of 'one nation under God' is minimal." The phrase does not explicitly endorse, affirm, or impose any particular religion, or a religion at all, for that matter. Of course, I can see knee-jerk ACLU types saying that this is tantamount to forced school prayer, but I obviously strongly disagree.

The Washington Post also has an article on this travesty, with this quote from Judge Alfred T. Goodwin: "A profession that we are a nation 'under God' is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation 'under Jesus,' a nation 'under Vishnu,' a nation 'under Zeus,' or a nation 'under no god,' because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion." Again, I disagree. "Under God" does not explicitly imply any particular deity, or could in turn imply the lack of a deity, to admittedly stretch a metaphor somewhat.

I'm usually pretty moderate in my political views, leaning left and right at will, but I feel the need to rail against this radically liberal bullshit. If they're that offended by the phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance then what of the song "God Bless America," the later verses of the "Star Spangled Banner," and all of our money ("In God We Trust")?! In any case, the implications for this will obviously be great, and I look forward to a speedy Supreme Court reaffirmation.

You know that summer TV sucks when "The Price Is Right" has the best ratings for a non-rerun entertainment show. At least I can catch up on my movie watching, and thankfully I have almost a full season of "Scrubs" to catch up on after watching "24" during the regular season.

Mmm...Krispy Kreme wedding cake.

The WHO (World Health Organization) is investigating whether potato chips and french fries cause cancer. Apparently, a study found that high levels of acrylamide, which is present in some starch-based foods, were carcinogenic in mice. I saw a news story last night that said that the levels would have to be very high to affect humans, but wouldn't it figure if this was true? Next they'll be telling me that pizza dough causes brain tumors...

Update: A FoxNews story reveals that the cancer scare is a bit premature, as a human would have to eat 35,000 potato chips (about 62.5 pounds) per day for life to receive the same dose of acrylamides as the lab animals did. Whew! Good thing I only eat half that much fried potato product per day...

Men Without Hats is looking for "talent" for upcoming live shows. So how cool would it be to do the "Safety Dance" on stage with the band? OK, not very, but "Pop Goes The World" just rocks! Just for you, Matt...

Here's a nice picture of Cal Ripken with W acting his typical presidential self. Which is to say that he looks like the simpering idiot that he is.

Your Guide to Spotting the North American Rock Critic is a funny article elucidating the finer points of rock critic stereotyping.

Selenographia is a beautiful and informative site exploring the geography, folklore, and exploration of the moon. One of the best features is a high-resolution map of the entire Moon's surface. I can see the rabbit!
(Just for you Mike, if you're reading this)

I've e-mailed people this link before, but I think it's worth revisiting Frank's Vinyl Museum: The Internet Home of Weird Records. He regularly updates the site with the most bizarre records imaginable. To wit, one of his new additions is: "Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay." Not only does he post the covers, but he also features RealAudio samples of most of the tracks. Worth a look.

John Densmore of The Doors represents one of the few bands unwilling to sell out its music to commercials. I'm glad someone is, because I'm sick and tired of seeing good songs get bastardized into a thirty-second snippet of glossy advertising. My favorite quote: "I hope Sting has given those Shaman chiefs he hangs out with from the rainforest a ride in the back of that Jag he's advertising." Classic.

Take a look at the Most Useless Uses of a Time Machine.

retroCRUSH presents The Top 10 Most Controversial Albums Of All Time. I think it's ironic that 2 Live Crew succeeded despite all of the bad press they received. NOT.

Here's some Monday morning fun from Wonka: the Gobstopper Gobbler Game. Pac-Man it's not, but it's Wonka!

Who needs the purple pill? Man eats live lizards to cure tummy trouble.

I need to think of a witty caption for this picture of W racing White House staffers. OK, how about: "Secret Service agents were poised to tackle anyone that might challenge W in winning the race, knowing full well they would have to endure endless childish mockery for having "lost" the race.

Here's yet another example of our stellar education system: one in three fourth-graders can't find their state and mark it with an X. C'mon, it's not like they live in The Simpsons' Springfield.

Apparently Pakistan has Rednecks too. A mortar shell meant to be fired in celebration killed 25 people at a wedding, including the groom.

Here's an appliance for the ~~geek~~ chef in all of us.

Russian hackers claim that the Japanese created a huge magnetic field in their stadium that bent the ball away from their goal in a potentially game-winning Russian penalty kick. In a story carried by the Russian newspaper Pravda, the Japanese are quoted as being "very inventive...they can make up very unusual things sometimes." Talk about your weak excuses...

San Diego can't stand Raiders fans.

BBC soccer commentators, unaware that they were still on the air, called the Germans "fucking Krauts." I think this is just hilarious.

Visit Villainsupply.com for all your doomsday device needs.

In case you haven't heard (and care), the new M&M color is purple.

Check out SongFacts, a great site with lots of information, trivia, and details on songs and their artists. It covers a surprising range of artists and time periods and engaged my low attention span for quite some time.

INXS is touring the US again for the first time since Michael Hutchence's death. I wish them well, although it won't be the same without him.

An asteroid came within 120,000 km of hitting the Earth last Friday, June 14th. That is well within the Moon's orbit, only the 6th object ever recorded to have approached that closely, although other objects were much smaller. What is even more alarming is that the asteroid was not detected until three days later. The asteroid only had a diameter of 200-300 feet, but at a speed of 23,000 miles an hour it would have caused devastation comparable to the asteroid that struck Siberia in 1908. This is pretty scary when you think about it, especially when you realize that even if you could detect something this small, there is a "blind spot" caused by the Sun that could prevent us from ever finding objects in certain portions of the night sky.

If I didn't know better, I would've thought that W came up with this, but apparently the EPA claims that "the Army Corps of Engineers' dumping of toxic sludge into the Potomac River protects fish by forcing them to flee the polluted area and escape fishermen." See? Pollution is good! Because otherwise it would be just like The Simpsons' "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish." What morons.

British engineers with too much time on their hands have proven the feasibility of phones implanted into a tooth. Once again, I am compelled to point out the foresight of the movie Real Genius: "Owen, stop playing with yourself." :-)

Buy your Best Man speech on the Internet. I think this is pretty damn lame.
Matt, I expect that you'll come up with something good on your own. ;-)

Radio has been terrible for a while. Just when I start liking a song, it gets played to death and I can't stand hearing it any more. And the lack of variety doesn't help matters either. Clear Channel is the next Microsoft of radio. It owns 1,200 radio stations across the country, 8 in the Washington DC area alone. This homogenization and commercialization of radio will not get any better until listeners tune out, which is difficult to do without an alternative. I'm looking closely at XM, one of the satellite radio providers that seems to offer a lot more variety, albeit at a cost.

OK, enough serious stuff. Play Super Free Kicks and try to score three free kicks in a row. I've only managed one so far, but then again MTV has ruined my attention span.

"Stop, or I'll say stop again!" It's about time that Yasser Arafat ~~took some decisive action~~ made a feeble quote.

W is kicking off a physical fitness initiative for Americans. I don't have anything bad to say about that, except that he sure looks unfit in the picture CNN used. Of course, I'm not one to talk, but I'm dispensing the insults here, not absorbing them. :-p

High school senior Masha Malikina was paralyzed from the waist down three years ago in a car accident. Her goal was to be able to to walk across the stage at her graduation. Amazingly, she recovered enough to be able to walk with the aid of a walker. However, her principal dashed her hopes, claiming that he was unwilling to risk the liabilities associated with her possibly injuring herself. Thankfully, a local radio station stepped in and staged a ceremony just for Masha, where she was able to walk across the stage and accept her diploma in front of a cheering audience. And as for that prinicipal, what a shyster.

Someone's losing their pilots license. OK, maybe not, as it isn't as bad as it initially sounded. The White House was evacuated yesterday briefly because a single-engine Cessna strayed into restricted airspace above Washington.

Donald Rumsfeld is a big whiner. In order to avoid conflicts of interest in his government position, he sold off up to $91 million dollars in assets. The man is obviously worth quite a lot of money, but is now complaining about the complexity of the disclosure forms and the $60,000 in fees he paid to have accountants prepare them for him. We should all have such problems.

There's more damning evidence in the Colorado forest ranger saga. It now appears that they don't even believe her (flimsy) story about burning a letter, alleging that she deliberately set the fire and created what appeared to be an abandoned campfire to cover her tracks. There's a special place in Hell for her if this is true, especially considering all of the people whose lives were destroyed and all of the people who lost their lives flighting these blazes.

W is a moron, no matter what his spin doctors try to say. I really doubt that the man who cheerfully (and smarmily, I might add) admits to being a non-elitist C student discussed the Nicomachean Ethics of Tocqueville with a colleague. To wit: among the countless intellectual blunders, faux pas, and outright mistakes that W makes, this is the deep insight he had on immigration last week, "We need to know who's coming in and why they're not going out." As the story suggests, maybe it was actually Nickelodeon Ethics that he discussed. :-p

Get free popcorn chicken at KFC tomorrow from 11-2. Mmmm... popcorn chicken.

Score one more for the bad guys: RIAA has settled its copyright suit with AudioGalaxy. After the demise of Napster, AudioGalaxy was one of the better peer-to-peer (P2P) music sharing sites. Unfortunately, they succumbed to the demands of RIAA, and after a while blocked more songs than they offered for download. This settlement further cripples their selection, as they can now only feature songs that are explicitly offered by the music publishers, songwriters, or music labels. So basically you're not going to find anything you want at AudioGalaxy anytime soon.

My current favorite P2P service is Kazaa Lite, a version of the popular Kazaa service that has all of the spyware and advertising removed. I have yet to not find a song there, and you can also download videos and images, although I haven't really delved into that much yet. Try it; you'll like it! Their download site is a little slow lately, but it's worth the wait.

And now for the Feel Good Story Of The Day: Seal saves drowning dog. No, not a Navy SEAL, a seal. OK, everybody at once now: "Awww, how cute..."

Most of you have heard that Italy was upset by South Korea yesterday when an overtime header put the South Koreans ahead by 2-1. It turns out the the game-winner was scored by Ahn Jung-hwan, who happens to play soccer for Perugia, an Italian soccer club. Because of the goal, "That gentleman will never set foot in Perugia again," according to the chairman of the soccer club.

In addition to this classless act, the Italians are now alleging that there was a conspiracy to oust them from the tournament. I know that soccer is like religion over there, but get a life, people.

In a move sure to piss Bill Gates off :-), Disney is moving to Linux for its film animation. Thanks to slashdot for the nifty penguin icon.

Keep away from the rabbit!

All I can think about when I see this photo is the movie "Real Genius."

Take this science quiz given to 4th, 8th, and 12th graders and see how you do. Then compare to the percentage of students who got the questions right. I'm happy to say that I got 100% :-P, but it's sad to see how our children did.

Salon.com has a great article on the history and cultural significance of Pac-Man. I still remember playing it for the first time in Wildwood, NJ, vainly trying to figure out why those things just turned blue...

Popular Mechanics has posted an archive of its covers from 1902 to present. Some of the older ones are especially amusing to look at, as some of their futuristic predictions fell a little short.

The Astronomy Picture of the Day has been around for seven years! Its simple interface hasn't changed much since it first went up, and the images are almost always dazzling.

Here's a fun game that is sort of like The Sims meets The Osbournes.

Circuit City is starting to phase out VHS movies. Is this the first death knell for VHS or just a electronics retailer trying to maximize its profits? I have a feeling that it's a bit of both, but this reminds me of the mid- to late-80s when certain albums were beginning to be released as CD-only instead of on cassette tapes (and vinyl).

How would you like some chili-flavored candy? You might not, but apparently confectionary manufacturers feel that the US Hispanic population is an untapped market that would enjoy "salt, sugar and chili" versus "[s]our, tart tastes [that] might work for the Anglo."

A Navy recruiting website neglected to renew its domain and it was quickly snapped up by a porn site. Now, over 4,000 other recruiting sites that link to are scrambling to update their links while the Navy negotiates to get back its name. I think the final quote in the story sums it up best: "for viewers who still come across NavyDallas.com, there's plenty of pictures of seamen." :-)

The New York Times has an interesting story about experiments with transgenic goats excreting spider silk into their milk. If successful, large quantities of spider silk could be produced and used in a myriad of applications. Spider silk has a tensile strength five times greater than that of steel, so lightweight, extremely strong materials could be the result of these experiments.

This year's crop of graduating seniors was born in 1984, a sobering fact for me, since I was 12 at the time and remember 1984 quite well. In fact, I consider it one of my favorite years of the '80s, a decade which is near and dear to my heart. To make me feel that much older, some of these seniors were asked some pop culture questions, and the results were pretty depressing.

By now, you've probably heard about the wildfires that raged in Colorado last week. Well, you'll be surprised to hear who was responsible for one of them: "A U.S. Forest Service employee set the fire that scorched more than 100,000 acres in Colorado and forced thousands to evacuate by burning a letter from her estranged husband in the Pike National Forest," where all fires were banned because of the extremely dry conditions. The employee admitted just yesterday that she started the fire, changing her original story that she came upon a fire and was unable to put it out. 'bout as sharp as a bowlin' ball...

And now for the Stupid Business Decision Of The Day: Home Depot stops doing business with the federal government. It's probably not that big a deal to lose 384,520 potential customers, no, not that big a deal at all. What morons...

Jeff Parks' goal is to "be the best light saber designer in the world." Should we tell him that they're just movies? Nah, then we couldn't make fun of him.

Austin, Minnesota, AKA Spamtown has opened a Spam Museum.

As a follow up to the earlier post that the Beijing News posted a satirical story from The Onion as fact, the newspaper has now finally retracted the story and apologized. However, as I said before, they still don't seem to get the idea of satire: "Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money. This is what the Onion does."

The Detroit Red Wings have won back the Stanley Cup, defeating the Carolina Hurricanes 3-1 in Game 5 last night. Defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom received the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP for the playoffs, becoming the first European to do so. Oh well, I was hoping for a better showing by the 'canes, but Detroit was just too good a team.

The Washington Post has a nice piece on the history of bourbon and the different processes that manufacturers use to distill the liquor.

I'm not a big basketball fan, but I really hate all the fawning compliments given to Shaquille O'Neal. Yeah, he's huge, that goes without saying. So because of his size he doesn't need much of a vertical leap to swat shots away and rebound. Offensively, it doesn't take all that much skill to walk up to the basket and dunk it when you're as tall as he is. And his free throws? C'mon now, I suck and I can do better than that. Finally, someone else is willing to come out and tell it like it is: Shaq's "skillz are wack." Now beyond any name-calling, this reporter has some well-written arguments listing why any other NBA player would not be able to last in the league as long as Shaq has.

Anybody that read comics in the '70s and early '80s probably remembers the cheesy Hostess comic book ads featuring superheroes fighting crime with, say, Twinkies. This site also has scans of ads like the (in)famous Sea Monkeys, X-Ray glasses, and more.

The Internet Pinball Database rules! Star Wars and Jurassic Park are my all-time favorites. I found a Star Wars machine at Gameworks in Seattle and spent way too much time playing on it rather than all of the new-fangled arcade games they have nowadays. Man, do I feel old when I talk that way.

Martha Stewart's in trouble! Martha Stewart's in trouble! That's right, baby, schadenfreude at its worst. Apparently, shares of Martha Stewart Living stock have dropped precipitously following the news that she sold off 3,000 shares of ImClone just before its experimental cancer drug was rejected by the FDA. The smoking gun - the former executive of ImClone was Martha Stewart's former boyfriend. She denies all wrongdoing blah blah blah, but let me just say: this is a Bad Thing.

Sony Music and Universal music may finally get the picture that a lot of people would be willing to pay for high-quality downloaded music that can be burned to CD etc. without restriction. Apparently, this summer both companies are making singles available for download for $1.49 and $0.99 without restrictions. If true, this shows that industry executives have finally removed their heads from the sand and realized the direction they need to take if they want to embrace rather than butt heads with consumers. This is still only a first step in my opinion but is a welcome change from the litigious stubbornness of the RIAA.

The Atlantic has a well-written article about the recent competition between Lockheed Martin and Boeing for the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter). There were obviously a lot of factors weighing into declaring Lockheed Martin the winner, but I find it particularly amusing that the somewhat ugly appearance of the Boeing entrant was at least mentioned.

I guess there's a collector for everything, including hotel soap and toiletries. I find the fact that this person has collected over 800 pieces since 1989 less disturbing than his quote, "This is like talking about my children."

According to CNN, Big Ben 'was [a] September 11 target', but the terrorists were thwarted when flights from Heathrow were grounded.

McDonald's test-markets Spam in Hawaii. [Insert Monty Python joke here.]

This week you can spot the Space Shuttle and International Space Station overhead. Check out the link for dates and times.

For all of my fellow geeks that yell at a movie when something in space makes a sound as it explodes, here's a great site dedicated to Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics. Although in my defense I must say that I don't spend time working out conservation of energy equations to disprove some of the things seen in movies. Most of the time, at least.

As a follow-up to the protest by some Dartmouth ~~losers~~ seniors over Mr. Rogers being their commencement speaker, here is a transcript of that address. I think he was eloquent and inspiring, and that all of those people who protested are poopoo heads.

Lobbyists for SPI Spirits Group, the distributors of Stolichnaya Vodka, held a "vodka party" for "a couple of hundred Capitol Hill staffers" to draw attention to the trade dispute in Russia. Our overworked elected representatives have to deal with early morning briefs over Mimosas, two-martini working lunches, and evening deals over a drink or two. I for one am glad to see that they now have the opportunity to get to some real hard drinking.

Ted Nugent is a pretty unusual guy, to say the least. This interview goes through his predatory eating habits ("Vegetarians are cool. All I eat are vegetarians -- except for the occasional mountain lion steak"), his take on the English Language ("Nugetize it!"), and the philosophies behind Tribe Nuge.

According to psychologists, "ums" and "uhs" have meaning. They're called disfluencies and discourse markers, if anyone cares. I didn't think so.

Talk about your expensive movie shoots: the city of Sydney will "shut down" for two days to allow the filming of the final scene of The Matrix Reloaded. Damn! The scene does sound pretty cool, but this has got to be a first.

A the foot of Mount Fuji, a select few got to take a ride on the experimental maglev train capable of speeds of 500 kph (310 mph). It would be so cool to see the train pick up speed and retract its wheels like a plane...

And now for the Obvious Story Of The Day: tattoos and piercings are linked to bad behavior.

IBM researchers have come up with a breakthrough in storage technology that can cram as much as one terabit of information per square inch. If they produce this technology they could conceivably produce watches with chips that can hold 10-15 gigabytes of data, to name an example mentioned in the article. How cool would that be?

If you missed the partial eclipse last night, check out these pictures and videos.

The Ralph Wiggum soundboard is hilarious!

A Wisconsin company created the "plumbers' special" t-shirt to combat that unsightly plumber's crack.

This collection of movie title screens is quite impressive.

The Russian Mafia has quite a stake in Russian hockey and its influence in the NHL in extorting players is apparently common knowledge. I always suspected this was the case, but I never realized just how extensive things were.

The Stanley Cup will be in Detroit on Thursday now that the Red Wings won Game 4 last night. Their lead in the series is 3-1, giving them the opportunity to win it all at home on Thursday. Looks like my 'canes have their work cut out for them.

Two Normandy fisherman want to create a commercial mussel bed at the D-Day landing site of Omaha Beach, and even want to use the name "Omaha Beach" as their brand name. This is sacrilege if I've ever heard it.

Italy has committed itself to build a bridge from the mainland to Sicily across the Straits of Messina. This would be the world's longest suspension bridge if it actually gets built, nearly two miles long. As a comparison, the Golden Gate Bridge is about 2/3 mile long.

The 460-year old Wye Oak was toppled by a thunderstorm on Saturday. :-(

A campaign is being launched against triple kisses. This is what my tax dollars are being used for? Oh wait, this is in the Netherlands. Never mind.

Printer companies are gouging you for ink because they are selling printers at a loss. I always figured that the obligatory "USE EPSON INKS ONLY OR YOUR PRINTER WILL BLOW UP" disclaimers were a little exaggerated, but I never realized just how much the manufacturers were profiting from ink sales.

Mmm... Drakkar and Coke. I guess I shouldn't make fun, but it's just too easy.

These clothes look like people's butts. Huh huh, I said butts.

Don't like the view from your window? Make a new one! Take a look at The Cityscape Project, one man's effort to transform his dull view of bushes into a majestic night vista.

An essay question is expected to be added to the SAT. It's about time! It was bad enough that they came out with the SAT2 or whatever its name was in the late '90s because it was felt that the SAT test was too difficult. Yeah, that's the kind of moral we need to teach our children: we're not doing our job educating you, so we'll just make the standardized tests easier so your scores are higher. Maybe this revamping will hold the educational system more accountable...

Download this cool "live-action" Transformer video of a VW bug transforming into a robot.

Here is a new version of the educational video demonstrating how to conceptualize the Powers Of 10. Basically you start at a view of 10e22 meters from Earth and zoom in one order of magnitude at a time until you are at the nanometer (10e-9) scale inside an atom. The original version is still available here.

The Borowitz Report is consistently one of the funniest daily humor columns I've come across. Check out
this story; it's always funny to point out W.'s many inadequacies, to say the least.

Game 3 was the third longest Stanley Cup Finals game ever, lasting well into a third overtime. Here is one humorous view on how the series is being played so far. Personally, the Avs-Wings semifinal was more exciting to watch. I am still rooting for the underdog 'canes, but Game 3 was very hard to watch...

Nevada has nixed a plan to produce a special license plate honoring its role in nuclear testing. Granted, there is a mushroom cloud pictured on the license plate, but we are all adults, and I see no reason to try and whitewash the past.

There will be a 2003 season for the NWFL. That's right, the National Women's Football League. I thought this was a joke at first, but it actually looks real...

See if you agree with this list of the 100 worst films of the 20th century. I pretty much agree with their list, although I like "Red Dawn" and "Showgirls." Of course, I like "Red Dawn" because I saw it in the theaters when I was like 12 years old and I like "Showgirls," well, for obvious reasons.

College ~~losers~~ seniors at Dartmouth protest having Mr. Rogers speak at their commencement ceremony.

During a traffic stop in Ocean City, a man was arrested for calling the female officer "hon." I just think that this is hilarious, but in all seriousness, the dumbass didn't get arrested because of what he said but because he got out of the car and confronted the officer. And repeatedly calling her "hon" didn't exactly endear him to the officer, apparently...

As most of you have probably heard, President Bush has created a new cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security encompassing nine departments and about 169,000 employees. Personally, I think the chances of this department being effective are pretty slim. There are enough power struggles and turf battles as it is; forcing them into one department is not an easy fix.

In other news, isn't President Bush just the cutest little dickens? Can you believe this dolt is the leader of our nation?

Take a look at duct tape fashion. Whatever; just don't fall asleep in the sun, people...

Dee Dee Ramone was found dead in his home yesterday. Man, first Joey and now Dee Dee... :-(

"Wonder Twin powers, activate!" Form of, a crappy live-action movie! C'mon people, Scooby Doo is bad enough...

Somebody built a Periodic Table table. Yes, that's a table that looks like Mendeleev's Periodic Table, complete with drawers containing a sample of each element if possible.

I guess the Chinese don't get American satire. The Beijing Evening News translated an entire article from The Onion, presenting it as fact.

You don't hear about too many 30 year-old rookies in the major leagues. The Baltimore Orioles' relatively unknown pitcher Travis Driskill bounced around the minors for 10 seasons before finally getting his chance this April, when he was called up from Rochester. Last night against the Yankees, he pitched 7 2/3 solid innings, leading the Orioles to a 4-3 win. The "kid" might be worth watching...

It's no surprise that the heavily-favored Red Wings won their second game at home. Although I'm still rooting for the 'canes, they just didn't play as well this game, and it's more of surprise that the 3-1 score wasn't higher, as Detroit players blew several great scoring chances.

In celebration, Nick and Sarah Arena named their newborn son Joe Louis. That's right, his name is Joe Louis Arena, the name of the stadium where the Red Wings play. That's just a bit much, people...

15 people were hurt in a "cheese roll" in England. OK, maybe I'm not as culturally aware as I thought, but I have no idea what the hell a "cheese roll" is. All I can think of is a Monty Python sketch gone awry. "Look out, John, the cheese has come round and is advancing on us!"

He may be burnt-out, but Ozzy Osbourne knows a good marketing scheme when he sees one. I for one will not actually believe it until I see the teddy bear that yells "I'm the fucking prince of darkness!"

On Monday, June the 10th there will be a partial solar eclipse right around sunset. Unfortunately, anyone east of Atlanta will miss out on the fun, as the sun will have set by the time of the eclipse.

An "amorous dolphin" has been spotted in the waters off of England acting in a "sexually aggressive" manner. As The Simpsons' Cap'n McAllister said in "Treehouse of Horror XI," "The dolphins are upon us!" Yes, I know I have too much time on my hands.

By the way, for fellow Simpsons fans I found the Cap'n McAllister image here. The webmaster of this site has done a really great job digitizing pictures of all of the Simpsons characters. For just about every other piece of Simpsons information or trivia, check out The Simpsons Archive.

Visit the South Park Studio and create your own character.

Mozilla 1.0 has been released! I've been raving for some time now about how great this browser is. Some of my favorite features include tabbed browsing, built-in ad blocking (popup and regular "banner" type), and a very nice user interface. Best of all, all of the coding has been done in the open source community under the sponsorship of Netscape. The fact that it's a great alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer is reason enough for me, as I refuse to use the inferior product that's forced upon the unwitting public by Bill Gate's Evil Empire.

Check out all of the cool websites at the Scientific American SciTech Web Awards 2002 page.

The citizens of Boulder, CO are just a bit thin-skinned, in my opinion. Rather than enjoy a flyover by a USAF B-1 for the University of Colordado's AFROTC graduates, some citizens have vowed to complain to their congressman about the noise and "insensitivity" of the USAF. Gimme a break...
Thanks to Steve for the story...

Why did the US Embassy in Kenya receive 14 cows? The story is touching and poignant, and shows that some things transcend global boundaries.

When members of the Masai tribe in Kenya first heard about the 9/11 attacks, they really had no perspective from which to understand the impact it had on the US. When a tribe member studying as a medical student in the US returned to his kinsmen and told the horrific story, the tribe decided that something needed to be done. The result is a priceless gift that stands as a testimony to the tribe's compassion and humanity.

McDonald's is ordered to pay $10M to vegetarians because of its use of beef flavoring in French fries. *Now* I know why they're so good...

Update: McDonald's has issued an apology on their website.

Fire station's beer machine questioned. Need I say more?

Yo Joe! We can all learn a lot from the G.I. Joe cartoon. Here's an archive of all of the "Knowing is half the battle" endings.

Father's Day is coming up. Buy your dad the gift that keeps on giving - The Origami Boulder.

The 'canes win Game 1! On paper, Detroit is the much better team, but I have to admit that I was rooting for the underdog. Perhaps the folks at ESPN have a little "egg on their face" after this victory...

Click or save this link to a Windows Media movie! In the clip, Conan O'Brien's Triumph the dog conducts a hilarious interview of Stars Wars geeks waiting in line for the movie. It's pretty huge (17MB!), but well worth the download if you can handle the size.

This well-written piece about 10 Technology Disasters highlights some lesser-known failures in applying new technology. In almost every case, a relatively obvious (in retrospect, at least) flaw was to blame.

Woo hoo! Indiana Jones 4 finally seems to be moving along. In this interview with Steven Spielberg, he opines that "Harrison Ford can still kick the s**t out of most people half his age." Well, although he's definitely the only man for the part, I recall him looking a little out of shape back in Temple of Doom even...