Gotta Name 'em All

I did decently well, but then again I'm a huge nerd. Here's a grand collection of what are supposedly "game characters", though honestly I'd it a collection of various fantasy and sci-fi characters from games (Link), movies (Indiana Jones), TV (Transformers) and comics (Batman).

My personal favorite are the three Yakuza from Elite Beat Agents (second row, slightly right of center) or maybe ET from the Atari (third row, near the right hand bottom, next to Darth Vader).

Good times, have fun picking through them. Or don't.

Tron Legacy Trailer

I was completely against this movie until I saw this trailer. Previously, I thought it was just another campy cash in on the past. However, it looks like they might actually be on to something here. And if all else fails, at least they can turn it into one kick ass Lady GaGa video.

The Power of Pork

This Bacon-Rocket video will probably have already gone viral by the time you read this. This video is clear proof that at no time should you never forsake bacon nor take it in vain by not eating it. Ever.



Can't help but be reminded of the classic Simpson's moment where Lisa tries to kill Homer's BBBQ (the extra B was for BYOBB, and that extra B was a typo). It's just a little airborne, it's still good, it's still good!

Droid/Eris 2.1 Feature List

In a grueling wait that can only be compared to that for the second coming or the return of Tupac, HTC have been seriously testing my patience with Android 2.1. However, recent news indicates fairly strongly that they'll be making good on their March 2010 promise. As of last night, it appeared that working, albeit hacked, versions of 2.1 were up and running on several rooted Eris'. Hopping over to Android Central, I was able to pull up a quick feature list. Kudos to AC user mrfarinhight for the list.

-New boot screen, faster.
-Quick view of all home screens by pressing home or pinch zooming on homescreen.
-Highly increased lockscreen response.
-New App. Icons.
-New Apps. Include: Facebook, Navigator, Search People.
-Long press of hard buttons have haptic feedback (Vibration)
-Much improved Market, includes filters.
-Add to home now includes the categories: HTC Widget, Android Widget, Program, Shortcut, and Folder.
-Youtube App. Works and in high quality too.
-Camera has much different interface and much better response times.
-Overall much faster and snappier performance.
-Settings menu now has color icons and different settings.
-For those of you familiar with the "Backgrounds" App, It now can save pictures to your Albums. Meaning you can use the pictures from that app as lock screens.
-Menu button still bypasses lock screen
-If you like the "pattern" lock screen, it now displays the pattern box, emergency call, time, date, and % of battery left. When drawing the pattern it is also much more responsive.
-When you turn GPS on, it no longer displays a little GPS at the top as far as I know. It will instead activate it AND your "My Location", and show a signal coming from the crosshairs.
-In google maps, with GPS OFF, it will get your location pretty close. With GPS ON, you location is dead on accurate.
-When changing wallpapers, you now have the option to use the Wallpaper gallery for both Home AND Lockscreen.
-New market has all those beautiful apps you wish you could have had before such as google earth and live wallpaper.
-Many cool new widgets to add to home such as Power Control.

I'm definitely excited, especially for the improved GPS/Maps/Nav, the Live wallpapers and most of all the improved responsiveness. It's a good time to be a Droid user, no doubts.

Lost Art of the Music Video

Let's get nostalgic for a moment. I'm not saying that music videos today lack the soul and artistry of those in the late 80's and early 90's. What I am saying is that today I'm not quite sure music videos still get made. More artists seems to be releasing their videos to youtube and the like, and "music channels" like MTV, VH1 and even CMT don't seem to play anything even remotely related to music anymore. Not that I'm complaining, I never watched those stations after the onset of reality programming. But that's another rant for another day.

Today I want to talk about the Gorillaz, the combi-band put together by Blur frontman Damon Albarn and the guy who made the Tank Girl comic / movie series, Jamie Hewlett. Quick backstory, the idea was to create a "virtual" band whose members would not be known, and who's only performances would be online in cartoon form. The band has various contributors, and only Albarn is consistent across all their works.


In a way that most bands simply can not (or will not) pull off, the band combines heavy elements of rock, rap, R&B, classical and techno. Returning to my earlier topic: what I really like about the Gorillaz, beyond their mellow and genre-bending sound, is that their music videos are pure art. The kind of art that brings to mind Todd McFarlane, Miyuzaki and the like. El Manana in particular I think is very well done. Incoming content.

El Manana


Deltron Zero


O Green World (short version)

Decline of manual transmissions

Caught an interesting article today that made me think a bit. You don't need to work in the car industry to know that the Manual Transmission automobile is a dying breed, and has been on the sharp decline for a while.

Automatic Transmissions make nice cars cry


When I first learned to drive a car around 2000, my father insisted that I learn on a manual transmission. I don't remember being particularly upset about this, but also don't remember seeing the point. His reasoning was that 1) it was a safety issue, in case I ever had to drive a friend's car if he were incapacitated (or drunk), and 2) it was "what men do". As annoying as it was, I've always been thankful for learning to drive on a stick (My 87 MR2 and I have some great memories) and think it's served me well. Anyway, nobody cares about me, so here's some fun information.

• In 1985, 22.4% of new cars were manuals
• In 2007, 7.7% of new cars were manuals (a reduction of 65% over 20 years)
• On AOL Autos (AOL apparently not only still exists, but has a sizable community still) of the 4,000,000+ cars for sale, only 5.5% are manuals.

Now, the guy in the attached article goes into several causes as to why the manual is eclipsing, such as modern traffic conditions, fuel efficiency and the like... But to be honest I think people are just lazy. When it takes 10% less effort to drive your car, even if that 10% makes it a more exciting and fun experience, people are just lazy enough to not care.

Maybe I do need to be forgiven

I think that if I could have everything from one single website vendor online, it would be Amazon, because come on, they have everything there. I'd be rich, bitch.


But if I could have everything from a second store online, it'd be Thinkgeek. It's probably the best collection of nerdy devices and other things no one NEEDS but every nerd WANTS.

Things like a Tshirt that detects and visually displays any local WiFi signals. Or how about one with a working Guitar Hero style guitar on it?

Try a power inverter built into a coffee cup case that fits in your car's cup holder, or maybe my personal favorite, the toaster-style SATA-USB drive bay.


Anyway, apart from being totally awesome and having the coolest toys for sale, Thinkgeek is one of THOSE companies. You know the kind, the ones where it seems like everybody is 27 years old, totally cool and has fun while they work. Case in point, here is the Who's Baba O'Reily, played by the Thinkgeek staff using nothing but things you can buy on their site.

Shopped, I can tell by the blast points

Here's a fun little project I stumbled across today. A friend at work sent these over, and I ended up spending a few minutes perusing the guys site. His basic premise is to take otherwise mundane (if a little interesting, admittedly) pictures, and then photoshop Star Wars paraphernalia into them.

The results range from stunning to mediocre, but I've picked out a few I found to be of note. The rest can be found here.