Audit: Homeland Security poorly managed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly three years after President George W. Bush created
the Department of Homeland Security after the September 11 attacks, the
sprawling agency still faces management problems that were partly to blame for
the poor response to Hurricane Katrina, an internal audit showed.

Bananas will fuel the revolution

Their consumtion is now mandatory on a regular basis. See attached article. That is all.

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Ack! Spielberg tempted to remake Mary Poppins

According to this article, Spielberg has approached the director of the London stage show about the project. Get ready to not buy tickets to this one...

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Dwarfs honoured in ancient Egypt, research reveals

"The ancient Egyptians looked on dwarfs as magical figures and elevated some to the status of gods, an American doctor's study says."

Sorry, this like just made me kinda giggle.

Overstock shares fade as CEO warns of 'drugs or dead body' caper

In a single TV interview last week, he shocked investors by revealing that holiday sales were far below expectations, perplexed the financial crowd by talking about drugs and dead bodies being found in his trunk and initiated a verbal war with billionaire blogger Mark Cuban.

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Remember kids.

Just because Former Enron Chief Account Officer Richard Causey is finally pleading gulity to fraud and agreeing to a plea bargain to help the gov take down Kenny and Jeffy, doesn't mean he's still not a monster who helped screw thousands of people...in the bad way, the BAD way! sheesh.

Steven Seagal's Lightning Bolt Energy Drink

I am so tempted to try this for some reason, I'm sure it can't come close to diet rockstar (the holy grail of all things carbonated) but I do suffer from existential confusion from time to time...perhaps Mr Segal has the answer...

"Are you stuck drifting through life in a state of existential confusion wandering aimlessly through the multitudes of energy products not knowing which one is the right one for you? Then look no further for the true meaning of life then Master Sensei Seagalâ??s Lightning Bolt Energy Drink!"

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"Putin dismisses outspoken adviser"

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- Russia's president Vladimir Putin has dismissed a top
economic adviser who said he was resigning because he could no longer work in a
government that had done away with political freedoms, the Kremlin said late
Tuesday.

"AFTERGLOW" is Japaense for neat.

" A Japanese guy uses a Laser Pointer to interact with the GUI to manipulate elements, bring up the tool bars, draws directly on the screen. Initially a Presentation Application, which may evolve into something more..."
We have something like this at work, but not with laser pointers, I'm hoping the company that does our boards will buy this tech so we don't have to get up out of our chairs to draw stuff on the screen. Neato movie link on the page =D

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Use your body to transfer data at high-speed

A new technology developed by a Japanese company. It uses the human body as a high-speed network capable of speeds up to 2Mbps. How fast is that you ask? Fast enough to transfer documents with a handshake or short movies with a hug. However if a japanese man starts touching you and uses the old "I'm trying to send you data" excuse.. I'd still punch him.

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Chipotle: Now taking orders on line

Oh lord yes! Now I do not have to wait in line with the masses to get my little foil wrapped piece of heaven. If left to my own devices I could eat there seven days a week.

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Rome-ward bound

We are going to Rome in less then 3 days! A big thanks to Expedia for wrangling Lufthansa back into check after it canceled our flight from Frankfurt to Rome and decided not tell anyone, until I happened to ask the other night just to double check everything. Gotta love that communication! Airport security should be tight; I expect legionnaires at key points checking everyone. You know. To keep the Mongol hordes away.

CPR for SNL

Ardy, Jorm, and Kiv have slammed their fists down on SNL and screamed "Breath! Damn it!" If you haven't seen their skit "Lazy Sunday" also known as the Narnia rap. Then you just haven't lived have you? Check out their site here

All I have to say is :

Small children cry when pope dons christmas hat

Did I not tell you that the new pope, much like the attempt at new Coke, is just evil? Look at this article of him in a christmas hat. gad.


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NeXT Fans bid farewell.....slips into History

The Bay Area NeXT Group, an important user group formed 15 years ago around Steve Jobs' second great computer design, slipped into history in 2005, even as the technology that sparked it reached millions of users under a new name: OS X...

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NeXT has a special place in my geeky heart, it represents the start of my descent into true hardcore computer geek. I never owned one, and neither did my friends dad, he had two. Two NeXT cubes on loan from UCLA at the house. I have very fond memories spending hours in front of those screens Surfing the net with Thomas, back when: a) it was very cool to be a "net surfer" and b) before the world wide web was around. The Internet was a vastly different place then, and it will never be the same. Thankfully NeXT partially lives on in Apple’s OSX. Oh and by the way if you look at the little http:// on the address bar? It stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol and it was invented on a NeXT cube.

Because you want to see King Kong

Quote from article:

THE Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents.

Full article linked below

World update.

I've been noticing an alarming trend of urban ninja-likeactivity lately, but I'm pretty damned sure it's just attention seeking gymnastics sophomores. Either that or the exchange student program just rocks where these kids are. Despite all his dare devil ninja antics, the girls just don’t notice, as evidenced by the scene where he back flips across the freaking gym and no one bothers to look. He probably does it all the time.

Warning, most of these urban ninja movies have terrible soundtracks. So mute first, then play. In fact one had a terrible Eminem track looped over it, which coincidentally is being used to torture Arabs. Along with being banned in Iran along with all western music. ouch.

After eight years of reformist-led rule in Iran, Ahmadinejad won office in August on a platform of reverting to ultraconservative principles promoted by the revolution.

Since then, Ahmadinejad has jettisoned Iran's moderation in foreign policy and pursued a purge in the government, replacing pragmatic veterans with former military commanders and inexperienced religious hard-liners.

Holy smokes! Where I have heard this before? Wait don't tell me..

Purple Frogs!

Purple Frogs! Click the link for the full article and a photo. I've pulled the highlights and put them here.

The new species, named Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, belongs to an entirely new family of frogs.

Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis is not likely to win any beauty contests. It has a bloated body with smooth, blackish purple skin. The frog's pointed snout and heavy, strong hind legs help it burrow into sand.

Dean Gray

How rad is this? Dr. Who Theme + Green Day! The entire album can be found ::here::

::update::
For those of you who have no idea who or what Dr.Who is: this should help.
Dr. Who is the only reason I watched Public Television post Seasme Street as a child.

I <3 power outages

The power was out when I got home, so I ended up watching I heart huckabees on my laptop with candles and cheezits. I've had this movie sitting around the apartment, unwatched, for months despite everyone telling me that I should. Quite entertaining and I'm not sure why I was avoiding this movie for so long.

Next Morning Update:
I had strange dreams after watching this movie right before bed, this is the last time I expose myself to a pseudo philosophical movie before bed. Famous last words..I know.

Coke Blak < Josta

Since Coke is releasing some new Coffee/Cola hybridCoke Blak, it somewhat reminded me of the best soda ever produced on this planet. Josta. It was released on my High School Campus, and tasted slightly...strange. We all got addicted so quick, and then THEY PULLED IT. Ugh.

"Josta was a carbonated beverage produced by PepsiCo from December 1995 to February 15, 1999. The flavor of Josta has been described as both spicy and fruity. It was marketed as an exotic high-energy drink with high amounts of guarana and caffeine. It had developed a large following comprised of teenagers and people in their early 20s. Pepsi pulled the drink out of production due to lower than expected sales in early 1999 and as a result, a "Save Josta" campaign and a petition has been launched by fans of the drink."

(Wikipedia)

I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, cold and clammy, and needing a Josta. For the love of GOD why can't Pepsi bring it back!?

Sim City Classic Free online

Bless Maxis! The very first Sim City was the driving force behind my family's purchase of a PC (286 running at a blazing 12mhz). We were Mac people up until then and Sim City would not play on the mac. So we get the pc for xmas and I will never forget the feeling of total confusion and panic when I was greeted by C:\>_ At the tender age of 10 I vowed to learn all I could about this PC in order to play Sim City. And poof. here I am today. My father is a Sim City Clasic expert and would spend hours in front of that titan of a 15inch crt monitor saving cities from scenario after scenario. I just sent him this link to play online free since our copy will no longer work on our slightly faster computers at home. I probably won’t see him for awhile now (I kid I kid)

Japanese Emoticons

I came across this site on Digg.com, it's kinda neat to see how Emoticons differ from culture to culture, there is a page for Korean emoticons around somewhere too. Check em out! (^ ^)

"The Smileys(Emoticons) are used very often in the sentences of e-mails. They started in USA where the internet had also started of course. In Japan, the Smileys(Emoticons) grew in different manner from U.S.A. Now, there are several kinds of them."

Margaret's Rage

Some of you are already aware that my girlfriend is capable of Incredible Hulk like powers of destruction, for those of you that aren't, I want to enter this into evidence:
We arrive at my apartment tired and a little stressed out from the drive from Alameda, holiday traffic is terrible as ususal, we get inside, and she goes to the kitchen and, I swear to god, grabs thehot water knob in the kitchen sink and it CRUMPLES like paper under her iron grip. "I'm so sorry!" she cries! "It's okay sweetie...how did you do that?!" "I don't know I just wanted to wash this off" Seriously...shattered in her hand.

The type of parties I frequent

Best conversation ever. I leave for 5 minutes to grab extra fish to BBQ, I come back and hear this conversation between the hosts:
"Why is there smoke in the hallway?"
"Because of the fire YOU started!"
"Which one?"

College boys rock at quarters

like you didn't know this already, but if this video is anywhere near true, he has a xmen like powers of quarter manipulation, he should be feared and shunned.

Side bar missing? ------>

If the side bar is all the way down and you have to scroll to see it, I highly reccomend you stop using internet explorer until Microsoft decides to become standards compliant. I just spent the last 30 minutes trying to get IE to play nice with the sidebar and it looks like it won't happen. So get firefox.

you know it's cold when

your pens stop working, I hope they fix the heat soon, typing with gloves on is difficult =( and the little trackpad your laptop wont work either.

Acclaim goes Tango Uniform

Acclaim is going bankrupt. "Why the hell do I care?" You ask. You care because they are selling off publishing rights to certain video games like: *ahem* Bust A Move, Double Dragon, Ecco the Dolphin, Smash TV, and Crazy Taxi. Dude...publishing rights...you know Ecco the Dolphin needs another sequel, and Bust A Move, being... well, like digital heroin... Hell I'd buy the rights to Bust A Move and bury it out of spite...because Jasmine like..has to hand me my left eye back after she gets done DESTROYING me at that game.

Dogs Laugh

But probably not at you, an article on abc news talks about scientists exploring this vocalization, which is being called a dog "laugh".
"What we found is that it had a calming or soothing effect on the dogs," said Patricia Simonet, an animal behaviorist in Spokane who has studied everything from hamster culture to elephant self-recognition. "Now, we actually really weren't expecting that."

"The laughing sound that they make is something that was not even considered a vocalization until this study was done," Simonet said.

Click the link for the full article.

Homing pigeons

can be defective. Or at least have a very bad sense of direction. I visited my parents today and my mom whisked me away to the sliding door at the rear of the house. She closed the door, and flicked on the porch light. A smudge in the perfect shape of a bird was smeared into the glass door. Apparently a bird slammed into the door at full speed leaving its imprint on the glass, survived, and hung out in the backyard for a few days, my mom got close enough to determine that it was a carrier pigeon due to an attachment on one of its legs. After a few days the poor bird’s amnesia subsided and it took off home. I hope I can bring my camera and get a photo of the glass door before my parents clean it.

Acronyms are your friend

The world's longest acronym, according to the Guinness Book of World Records is NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT. It weighs in at 56-letters (54 in Cyrillic) and is from the Concise Dictionary of Soviet Terminology. It translates to: 'The laboratory for shuttering, reinforcement, concrete and ferroconcrete operations for composite-monolithic and monolithic constructions of the Department of the Technology of Building-assembly operations of the Scientific Research Institute of the Organization for building mechanization and technical aid of the Academy of Building and Architecture of the USSR.'

...just felt like sharing