July 2004
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Day July 15, 2004

Walking Dots

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Adjust the dots to different genders, weights and emotions. Pretty cool.

Good Eats House for Sale

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I am a big fan of the show Good Eats on the Food Network. The producer is selling the house on ebay where they have filmed many of the episodes. The starting price is only $850,000 so hurry and get your bid in. Oh, and the winning bid gets to experience a dinner cooked by Alton Brown himself.
(via Pop Culture Junk Mail)

First they came for the marine biologists…

From the West Virginia Gazette:

A husband and wife who wore anti-Bush T-shirts to the president’s Fourth of July appearance aren’t going down without a fight: They will be represented by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union as they contest the trespassing charges against them Thursday morning in Charleston Municipal Court.

Police took Nicole and Jeff Rank away in handcuffs from the event, which was billed as a presidential appearance, not a campaign rally. They were wearing T-shirts that read, “Love America, Hate Bush.”

Spectators who wore pro-Bush T-shirts and Bush-Cheney campaign buttons were allowed to stay.

“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” said Jeff Rank. The couple, who said they had tickets just like everybody else, said they simply stood around the Capitol steps with the rest of the spectators.

“We sang the national anthem,” Rank said.

The Ranks hardly fit the image of rabble-rousers. Jeff Rank, 29, has a master’s degree in oceanography. Nicole Rank, 30, has degrees in biological science and marine biology. They have been married for seven years.

UPDATE:

The charges against the couple were dropped. I still don’t understand why they were even arrested in the first place. SUE SUE SUE!!!

Atomic Cuckoo Clock

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I guess if you are going to have an annoying bird start singing every hour it might as well be on time.

The Radio-Controlled Cuckoo Clock monitors itself automatically by receiving radio signals from the official U.S. Atomic clock in Fort Collins, Colorado, where scientists measure time in fractions of a second. Works in any time zone. The big digital display shows time, day/date and temperature.

54 Greatest Movie Quotes of All Time

The Top 54 Movie Quotes? Why 54, you ask?

Well, to quote “Animal House” slob John “Bluto” Blutarski, as played by John Belushi, “(burp) Why not?”

The Most Annoying Commuters on the Train

I posted this last year when I was getting about 10 hits a day (5 of them me) and since I was sitting on the train from hell last night I thought it would be a good time to bring it out again. Feel free to add your own annoying commuter or passengers to the comments. Anyway, these are the type of commuters that annoy me the most.

The person who gives you a dirty look for asking them to move over so you can sit down.

You know this person. The train is busy. Most of the seats are taken and he/she is on the edge of one with room for another person. You ask to sit down and this person stares at you for a few seconds, struggling to comprehend that you bought a ticket and have a right to an open seat. These people are even more annoying if they have a bag or briefcase on the seat. Hey if you buy a ticket for your briefcase then you can have the seat. But I have yet to see any package with a T pass.

The person sitting next to you with Ebola.

Ok, maybe it isn’t Ebola but it is one bad case of the cold. Usually this happens on a busy day so that you are so close to them that you can actually see the virus leaving them and going straight for you. I understand that it isn’t their fault that they are sick but could they cover their mouth when they sneeze/cough. Can’t they put a quarantine car on the train?

The person who backs into their parking spot ten times to get their car straight.

If you can back into a spot correctly the first time that’s fine. What I hate is the person who backs into a spot crooked and then has to keep pulling out and backing back in until they get their car straight. Usually they come within millimeters of hitting an already parked car or they smack into a sign. They also are always the people who hold up traffic by backing in and out of their spot. I have noticed that 9 out of 10 times this is usually an older woman. I am not sure why but you can draw your own conclusions.

The person next to you who won’t shut up.

This is always the person who goes on the train without any reading material. To make up for it he will try to strike up a conversation. It always starts off with something about the train such as, “Crowded in here today.” Even if you are reading a book or magazine they will try to talk to you. I am not sure if there is a polite way to get them to stop. Usually I just give them a token “agreement smile” and then go back to my book. Sometimes this is not enough. In that case it is good always to bring a pair of headphones. Even if they aren’t hooked up to an actual radio, headphones are the perfect tool to ward away smalltalkers.

The person who falls on you as they sleep.

This is a bit rare but happens every now and then. They start off napping and suddenly they start snoring. If they are really in a deep sleep they sometimes end up slipping to one side. The problem is what is the etiquette. Do you wake them up so that they get off you or do you just push them off. These people are usually the ones that bothered you by trying to talk to you earlier. They are even more annoying if you wake them up to get off at your stop and they look peeved that you would dare wake them from their slumber.

The person on the cellular phone.

By far, the most annoying person on the train is the cell-phone person. I am not talking about the people who make a quick call to tell a loved one that they are on their way home. I am talking about the person next to you who has a 45 minute conversation and doesn’t even bother to lower their voice. There is nothing like listening to the self-absorbed mundane conversations of the person sitting next to you to ruin a perfectly good train ride. These people only can become more annoying if they have one of those Nextel phones with the walkie talkie. Then you can hear both sides of their trivial banter. As soon as a person sits next to you, pulls out a cell phone and says “What’s going on?”, you know it is headphone time.

Spot the Differences

Try to spot the differences between the two photos. It took me a bit.

10 Dumb Moments in Sci-Fi Cinema

Some of these are pretty funny:

Imperial walkers attack the rebels
“The Empire Strikes Back”

Why it’s so dumb: So, the same company that brings you the dark side of the force and the death star decides that tall, slow, off balance elephant thingies with laser beam-shooting tusks are the best way to ferret out the rebels from their underground fortress? Darth Vader may have been a patsy, but we all know he wasn’t that stupid. If ever a huge planet destroying technology was the appropriate choice, this was it.

Why we don’t care: Seeing the walkers come into focus in the rebel binoculars was the moment when “Star Wars” fans realized that “The Empire Strikes Back” might indeed be cooler than the original. That scene alone could be the reason we paid to see four more.

(Thanks Veronica)

Tony Soprano on Management

I don’t know how comfortable I would feel if I found out that my boss was reading this.

Economic uncertainty. Employee loyalty. Power struggles. Conflict resolution. Tony Soprano has to deal with management problems just like any CEO. Aside from “whacking” people (a definite no-no in most corporate environments), his strategies and tactics can work for you. He’s direct, he’s fast, and he’s successful. Learn what makes him such an effective leader in this offbeat leadership guide, including advice you can use on:


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