Month: March 2005

Check out this video (embedded Windows Media) of a Perfect 9 Dart Game (501), the first televised one ever, according to the broadcast. Wow…

Just when I thought that the promotional tie-ins for the upcoming Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith couldn’t get any more ridiculous (see my post on Darth Tater), I found out that “M&M’s Brand Candies is introducing a dark chocolate version of its famous candy.” Although a rampant sell-out, this in itself isn’t too bad, but the New York City unveiling ceremony is just too much:

One X-wing Fighter spacecraft, two droids, a host of storm troopers and Darth Vader with his M&M’s counterpart “M-Vader,” gathered in New York’s Times Square Tuesday to unveil the dark chocolate M&M’s.

M-Vader?! And you thought Jar-Jar was bad…

Update:: I guess I should link to the horribly cheesy “M&M’S® Chocolate MPire” video (embedded QuickTime video)…

Phil Bradley has provided a very nice resource entitled Finding what you need with the best search engines, covering many different types of searches as well as the whole gamut of search engines.

Update: I have to agree with Lifehacker that the omission of Wikipedia in the list was somewhat surprising…

Check out penny structures, bridges and domes built out of pennies with only the compressive weight of the pennies holding the structure up.

Check out the hilarious short film Cobra Island Rave with He-Man and Lion-O. The best part might be quick cameos of all sorts of cartoon characters throughout the film…

About.com has a nice article with some essential Firefox keyboard shortcuts, including one I hadn’t known about, “control-enter,” which will add “www” before and “.com” after any word you type into the address bar. A complete list of Firefox keyboard shortcuts is available here.

As if I haven’t been plugging Firefox and Thunderbird enough, I’ve found yet another reason to love Thunderbird: customizability. For those of you that use Thunderbird, you may have noticed that the address book can generate a map in Firefox (or whatever your default browser happens to be) via Mapquest if you hit the “Get Map” button. Well, I prefer Google Maps, so I did some searching, and it’s actually a pretty easy fix to redirect those requests to Google Maps instead.

First, you’ll need to download and install the “about:config” extension for Thunderbird. If you haven’t installed extensions for Thunderbird before, it’s a little different than in Firefox. You need to actually save the .xpi extension file, and then manually install that extension file via the Tools->Extensions->Install menu item in Thunderbird. The extension gives you the same functionality that the “about:config” command does in Firefox, allowing you to modify almost any setting, although most of them are not intuitive, unfortunately. In this case, you need to change the default value of mail.addr_book.mapit_url.format to

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=@A1,%20@A2,%20@CI,%20@ST,%20@ZI

Once you do that, the “Get Map” button in the Address Book will immediately generate maps in Google Maps. Sweet…

By the way, this particular extension allows you to add a button to your toolbar, although it’s not activated by default. To add it, right-click on the toolbar until you see a “customize” selection appear. Once you click on that, you’ll see a bunch of buttons that you can drag and drop anywhere on the toolbar, including a new button for “about:config.” You can also rearrange your toolbar if you like.

While I’m at this, I guess I might as well plug another useful Thunderbird extension: the Contacts Sidebar. It too has a handy button you can add to your toolbar, allowing you to see all of your address book contacts in the left sidebar underneath your mail folders.

For those of you that haven’t heard of it, Worth1000 is a site that sponsors themed PhotoShop contests, resulting in some really cool images. Check out The Best-of-Worth1000 Galleries, which could take quite a while to marvel over…

Although I consider myself a devoted fan of The Simpsons, the German tribute site to the deceased Maude Flanders seems a bit much…

The Inquirer reports that “soundcard maker Creative Labs has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit related to misleading marketing of its Audigy and Extigy range,” offering “25 per cent off the cost of their next purchase from Creative’s website, up to a limit of $62.50.” Apparently advertising related to the sound cards in question claimed that they could handle 24-bit audio at 96Khz, but this was quickly debunked by audio professionals hoping to make use of these capabilities. The claim settlement form is here if you’re interested. It looks like I’m eligible, but I don’t know if Creative Labs has any products that I need at the moment. I’d definitely prefer cash…