No, We Don't Sell Big Macs - That's Mcdonald's...Grrrr

The Burger King Therapy Center is a place for the beleaguered workers of Burger King to unite and share a few war stories:

Here at the Burger King Therapy Center we strive to be a compassionate solace for the tortured & battered souls of past, present and future BK employees. We hope you will find comfort in being here - A place to share your stories, your tears and your victories. Or just laugh everyone else's!

Powers of 10

A cool little java applet that gradually takes you from a picture ten million miles from the outer rim of the Milky Way to a face-to-face meeting with a single photon in Florida by magnifying it's view 10 times with each snapshot.

The Cult of Hasslehoff

I was at B3TA awhile back and they had a link to some surprisingly gushing reviews of a David Hasslehoff cd on Amazon. Well, it seems the link inspired some of their readers to go there and post their own over-the-top reviews, some of which are really hilarious - shining accounts of the album that put Best of David Hasslehoff on a plane well above Sgt. Pepper and Bridge Over Troubled Water abound, along with praise of his acting ability and overall genius and charisma, which is compared favorably with that of God's on more than one occasion. Here's a typical example:

Reviewer: Victoria from Bristol, England
I'm writing through a veil of tears having listened to this CD, which I can only describe as a work of art. Tears of wonder at the feelings that the songs evoke in me. Tears of sadness as the beautiful words and melodies re-open every mental or emotional wound that I believed had healed. Lastly, tears of joy at finally finding what I have been searching for all my life. I feel that my life is complete now that I have David and his work in it........and I am at peace with the world.

By the way, I feel that Hot Shot City deserves a special mention.

I think I'm going to go back to Amazon right now and start a new John Tesh thread, this is just too funny :)

Canadian Superheroes

A site about superheroes from Canada.

Star Wars...FOR ME TO POOP ON!

This link's a bit stale, I suppose, but hey...I didn't get around to watching Episode II till last weekend and I haven't watched this until today, so what the heck, it's pretty funny.

Conan O'Brien's "Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog" hassles die-hard Star Wars nerds standing in line for the latest installment.

Did You Hear What I Said?

The Al Pacino Soundboard (warning: foul language - duh - it's the Al Pacino Sounboard, so obviously...)

For Love of Beer and Back Bacon

A fan site dedicated to my favorite Canadian television hosts, Bob and Doug McKenzie, of SCTV and Strange Brew fame.

Snap Your Desk

At Snap Your Desk you can view photos of other people's desktops and upload your own to share with the world.

Hobo Nickels

In the thirties, when money was tight, says engraver Sam Alfono, one of the more unusual and creative ways for an homeless person, or hobo, as they were called, to make cash, was by carving so called "hobo nickels".

The coin of choice, used as a starting point for the work, was the U.S. Buffalo nickel - introduced in 1913 and well-suited to the art, as there was lots of metal to work with and around. Alfono, an active practioner of the art form, has many examples of his own works in the medium on his website, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to make them yourself, if you're so inclined.

Someday You Won't Have to Get Up for That Beer (Yes!)

In case you haven't seen them, Honda has been running a commercial showing off their new humanoid Robot, Asimo, which looks to be an AIBO-type thing that walks on two legs. Pretty cool looking, you can check it out here and view movies of it in action.

Pac-Man Fever (Again)

An article about the mighty Yellow One from Salon.com, which I'm posting because...well, you know, I'm just a Pac-Man nut, basically. Some things never change.

More ASCII Imaging Fun

The other day I linked to a page that would convert your pictures into ASCII artwork, but it had some pretty severe limitations (the size of your original picture had to be just-so). This one's way cooler - not only does it convert any picture you have laying around to a text-image, it does it in color, as well. The pic above is a detail from a screenshot I took of a Jimi Hendrix photo I converted with it.

The Seven Deadly Sims

For my Sims playing buddies out there, I don't know if you guys are still into this at all, but if you get the urge, they have a lotta Sims-stuff here.

1984

I had to include this link to a fully-searchable edition of George Orwell's masterpiece, 1984. If I had to choose, this is probably my favorite novel of all time and it's chilling message of a totalitarian future seems to grow more timely with each passing day:

The telescreen struck fourteen. He must leave in ten minutes. He had to be back at work by fourteen-thirty.

Curiously, the chiming of the hour seemed to have put new heart into him. He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage. He went back to the table, dipped his pen, and wrote:

To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone -- to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink -- greetings!

He was already dead, he reflected. It seemed to him that it was only now, when he had begun to be able to formulate his thoughts, that he had taken the decisive step. The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. He wrote:

Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.

In addition to 1984, the site has searchable online editions of The Bible and works by other literary greats, like Fitzgerald, Tolstoy and others.

Bubblegum Art

This guy makes his artworks from that time-honored medium, chewed-up gum. Uh huh...chewed-up bubblegum. Come on, you knew it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Molested Cars

They're out there, you've seen them...people doing unspeakable things to innocent cars that never harmed anyone - horribly pimped out trucks, terrible paintjobs, Neons with fins and racing stripes. The horror is all too real.

And We All Shine On

The latest fad among Japanese schoolchildren is making hikaru dorodango, or "balls of mud that shine". Kids there have gone nuts for this trendy new diversion and making a ball with the highest shine-factor, such as the one above, is quite the feather in one's cap.

Top 100 Monsters of All Time

As compiled by Retrocrush.com. Their list is bound to tick off some serious monster-loving fanatics out there, seeing as my boy Herman Munster and Casper the Friendly Ghost made the cut, along with such perennials as Godzilla and Frankenstein. Personally, though, I'm glad they saw fit to recognize some rather oddball choices, such as Bizarro Superman and Michael Jackson. The commentary regarding each pick is pretty good too.

The Elements

A cool little Flash toon that adds a bit of pizazz to the old Tom Lehrer song The Elements, a musical ode to the periodic table. I remember hearing this old song on Dr. Demento's radio show all the time when I was a kid. It's still pretty nifty, especially with the added element (no pun intended) of some simple animation.

Vintage Coffin Nail Ads

In the forties and fifties, not only was smoking not bad for you, heck - it was downright cool and good for you. Why else would Old St. Nick himself (shown above, endoring the delicious, soothing flavor of Chesterfields) be hawking them? Not to mention the obvious appeal of such gushing copy as this, regarding Kent brand smokes:

"Now, more than ever, you want a cigarette that really tastes fresh. Better change to Kent. It's the only cigarette with the Micronite filter... the filter that gives you high filtration to help you keep your smoking moderate. And besides, the Micronite filter smooths the flavor... If you really like to smoke a lot, why not make the change to Kent, today? And why not start with a carton?"

These old-school cigarettes sound great, how come nowadays they have all that awful "stuff" in 'em that kills you? Just another sign of how good, old-fashioned craftsmanship and value has gone out of style, I guess.

Perhaps the Most Creative 404 Page I've Ever Seen

Dude takes his page-not-found messages very seriously...(warning: language).

I've never given much thought to bathroom decoration, but recently I saw a couple items on the web that were just way too cool (and over the top) not to like, such as this aquarium toilet and what is perhaps the supreme bachelor-pad accessory, the home entertainment jacuzzi, complete with surround sound and widescreen tv monitor.

Evil on a Budget

A funny article on how to set yourself up as an evil-villian on a shoestring budget.

How to make soup

Ground Control to Major Tom - "Get Me the @#%# Out of Here!!!"

I've only seen the first of these Flash cartoons, but it was hilarious. Note for 56k folks, when you first start one of the toons, it's set for wideband by default, change it or you're in for a long wait :)

Oddest Action Figure Ever - Mr. Clean

Proctor & Gamble's website has Mr. Clean action figures for sale. I'm really curious as to who their target market for this item is, but if you're an obessive-compulsive or already have every other action figure on the planet and just can't live without one, hurry up - there's only a 100,000 of 'em and I'm sure they'll go like hotcakes. Did I mention that they're individually numbered, which will, no doubt, add to their umm...collectability factor?

Music Industry Unveils Piracy-Proof Format

Elvis Set for #1 Hit in U.K.

Well, thanks to World Cup fever, it looks as though Elvis may finally edge out The Beatles as the artist with the most #1 hits in the U.K. An obscure song, called A Little Less Conversation, remixed for a Nike commercial, is steadily climbing the charts there and looks to go all the way.

Typorganism

A cool, experimental website with some neat stuff, like an ascii composer that will take your 60x50 .jpg image and turn it into a typographic ascii-artwork like the one of Bill Gates shown above. I shrank the screen capture of the image, so you can't really see what's going on as far as the details go, but it's pretty nifty. Also on the site is a musical composer that will let you put together twelve-second songs on a virtual instrument. Requires the Flash plugin.

Like the Game Says, Folks - Sorry

I just want to apologize to the regular readers of my blog for the scarcity of updates lately. It's summertime and I've been getting out a little more. Now don't confuse that with "I've been windsurfing" or anything remotely cool or that will give me a tan, god forbid. It's just that I've been spending more time with my friends and so I've gotten a bit lazy about the blog recently.

I just needed a little bit of a break, at one point I was obsessively updating every day and I figured nobody was gonna have the time to look at all the links before they got pushed back into the archives anyway, so I chilled a little bit. Lately, however, I've been just plain neglectful of it and I just wanted to say "hang in there" to the friends who've stayed with me so long, I'll try and get it together and put some real goodies on here ASAP. At the very least I'll try and set aside a few nights a week to do big updates that'll keep you in links for awhile. Thanks again for reading, everybody, you know who you are. You're the best and if I didn't know you guys were out there I'd probably have chucked this thing at some point a long time ago.

Bullets Don't Spark

This and other movie conventions are explored from a geekish (and somewhat killjoy) page called Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics. Included are looks at the dangers of jumping through plate glass windows, falls and space explosions, along with reviews of movies from a strictly-physics standpoint.

Mr. Roger's Commencement Address at Dartmouth

Yahoo! Gets a Makeover

Yahoo, under pressure from advertisers, is changing the look of it's homepage. You can try out the beta version here...I guess it's not that bad, no floating banners flying around the screen or anything too intrusive. I'm sure this is probably just the beginning, though.

Childhood Memories Crushed Again - Hulk Smash!

Well, this is pretty sad...what happens when you hand over The Hulk movie to artsy-fartsy Ang Lee? Bad, scary things, from the sound of it.

As you may or may not recall, in the comic books, The Hulk came into being when mild-mannered nuclear physicist Bruce Banner, attempting to save his young friend Rick Jones from the effects of a bomb test in the desert, was blasted with gamma radiation and subsequently began turning into not-so-jolly giant called The Hulk. Now...maybe I'm no fancy-pants director like Mr. Lee, with his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon acclaim and such, but I don't see a lot wrong with that origin story. You have a guy selflessly sacrificing himself for a friend, a massive atomic explosion - all within the first few minutes of the film, basically. Sounds good, right?

Well, in Mr. Lee's version, which has nothing to do with the classic Hulk we remember, Banner is bitten by feral, radioactive dogs (created, if I recall the rumors correctly, by Banner's father, The Absorbing Man, a Marvel Comics character that had nothing to do with The Hulk, let alone had any relation to Bruce) and, at some point, battles a giant Hulk poodle. Yes, you read that right - a Hulk poodle. Mad yet?

After the success of Spiderman, any moron could see that there were going to be plenty of superhero comic adaptions made in the near future. What's sad is that most of these will probably be written and directed by people who've never picked up a comic book in their lives, unlike Sam Raimi, who was a life-long Spiderfan and wanted to see things done properly. Aside from a few minor changes, Spiderman was left pretty much as I remembered him and rightly so.

What Raimi seemed to understand and what Ang Lee doesn't, apparently, is that these characters were popular with people around the world to begin with, for good reason - and while I'm not against someone trying to add to their appeal, I think that throwing away the things that made them popular in the first place, in an attempt to make them "better" is foolish and counter-productive. Perhaps Lee's movie will be good and moviegoers who've never read the old comics and children who haven't grown up with The Hulk will enjoy it greatly and I hope that's the case. However, there will be a lot of people out there who are going to be bummed out over these radical and unnecessary changes, the very people who bought all those comic books years ago and made it popular to begin with. They only get one chance at making these movies and if The Hulk tanks, there won't be another one for a long time, if ever.

In worse news, in a particularly pathetic case of bandwagon-jumping, there's going to be a movie based on The Wonder Twins, of Superfriends infamy, possibly two of the lamest characters to ever come out of the superhero trash heap. Apparently some idiot Warner Brothers exec must have seen them on the Cartoon Network for ten seconds and mistakenly thought they were cool and asked around for the movie rights.

At least we can take some solace in the fact that David Koepp, the screenwriter credited with Spiderman, has signed on for round two.

Take That, Art!!!

Documenting what happens when nutcases freak out and desecrate great artworks like religious figures, the Mona Lisa, etc.

Sometimes Older Can Be Better

An article that details one good way to befuddle the current crop of website hackers: old mothballed os's like old DOS variants and AIX...the things are so old the script kiddies can't just dive in and start hacking away, simply because they're too unfamiliar and, in some cases, no documentation exists.

Auto Madness

Some odd little Flash driving lessons.

Behold, Trek Freaks: The Supreme Collector's Item

Whoever gets their hands on this baby is going to be the envy of nerds everywhere. The ultimate geek status symbol, Captain James T. Kirk's authentic captain's chair, is for sale on Ebay. If anyone reading this has a hundred grand or so laying around - I have a birthday coming up, you know.

The Legacy of Jimi Hendrix Lives on - in Google

I just thought this kind of humorous and telling - just for the heck of it, I typed "better than Jimi Hendrix" into Google and you know what it spit back out at me? The first couple pages of search results were all *joke* pages. :) Damn right.

Are You a Good Googler?

Tips and tricks for using the popular search engine.

Planearium

The Mouse Odometer

The Modometer Is a nifty, skinnable application that keeps track of how many far your cursor has travelled, which applications log the most miles/meters and puts together the data in easy-to-grasp ways...for example: "you've travelled half the distance of the Brooklyn Bridge" and similiar distance comparisons.

Science Toys

Science Toys is a website that will show you step-by-step how to put together some pretty nifty little projects, using common materials, spare electronics parts and the like. Build radios, rocket engines and some neat tricks, like the levitating magnet above, which is suspended in midair between two metal plates.

Hulk Smash!!!

A funny, in-depth X-Entertainment review of an 80's Incredible Hulk cartoon episode.

McDonald's Pays Out $10 Million to Hindus and Vegans

Maybe I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, I realize that I'm ranting a little more than usual, but I found one more thing to get upset about that I wanted to share.

The McDonald's corporation just settled a lawsuit brought about by Hindus and various vegetarian groups. Apparently, the fast-food behemoth failed to inform these folks that their french fries were cooked in oil containing beef-flavoring and now Ronald and company are shelling out ten million dollars and offering up formal apologies to all who were offended.

Now, actually, I was aware that their fries contained tallow. I'm not a vegetarian, but I do distinctly recall reading that there was a small amount of the beef-flavoring in their fries, which, at one time, were cooked in pure lard. This was shortly after health-watchdog groups were on their case and trying to get them to convert to pure vegetable oil. Their explanation of the small amounts of flavoring used was that the fries simply wouldn't have that great flavor that they're so famous for. I didn't find this out by digging through piles of documents uncovered by Ralph Nader or The Smoking Gun, either, it was printed quite plainly on one of their little tray placemats at the time, along with some other facts about their food.

Now I have one question for the Hindus, vegans and whoever else was in on this lawsuit: what in the HELL were you doing eating at McDonald's in the first place? Didn't it occur to you that Mickey D's isn't exactly a proponent of vegetarian quisine? Ever heard of a guy named the Hamburgler? It's not exactly a health-food store, okay you morons? Now, more than likely, the money and the apology won't be enough for these whiners...oh no. They'll wind up having to ditch the tried-and-true and, might I add, delicious recipe for fries that everyone knows and loves, just to satisfy a minority of McDonald's customers who probably shouldn't have even been there in the first place and that's just sad. I understand that, especially for the Hindus involved, the fry thing may have been kind of traumatic.

Still though, people, it's Mc Freaking Donald's, okay? Maybe you should have asked what was going on back there in the kitchen, instead of just gobbling down your fries so cluelessly. In fact, what are you there for in the first place? McDonald's is in the business of KILLING COWS, for god's sake. In fact, I would assume that the McDonald's Corporation is responsible for the deaths of more cows than anything else on the face of the earth, so isn't it just a tad hypocritical for you to be there eating in the first place?

I don't see a need for McDonald's to apologize to anyone for this, in the same way that they shouldn't have to bend over backwards to satisfy people who are too stupid to keep from spilling their coffee on themselves, then sue them when they burn themselves. It's bad enough they serve those vastly inferior baked apple pies now, as opposed to the much-tastier fried ones they used to serve, thanks to the health-food police...don't take away my fries, Ronald, I beg of you.

Vampire Wannabe Violates Probation, Steals Vial of Blood

It is my firm belief that there are some people in this world who should just be put down, same as you would a dog that has rabies. For whatever reason, they're just way too messed up for us to ever expect they can be "fixed", placed back into the general population and expected to play nicely with others. You're just going to wind up putting them in prison over and over, at a huge expense to taxpayers and a greater cost to their victims and their victims' families.

I think that a convicted rapist who thinks he's a vampire is a perfect candidate for this kind of solution. 22-year-old Jack Johnson, of Cincinnati, self-proclaimed vampire, violated his probation recently by stealing a vial of blood from a hospital where he was having some medical work done.

Johnson was serving three year's probation for raping a twelve-year-old girl, which apparently doesn't carry much of a penalty these days, obviously. This creep should have been counting his blessings and being thankful some idiot judge let him back out on the street, instead of placing him firmly in an electric chair and lighting him up like a Holiday Inn sign. Instead, what's does he do? He steals a vial of blood from the hospital to satisfy his Count Freakula need to drink human blood and gets tossed back in prison. Probably he'll be there, or in a psych ward, for another couple years, then they'll release him and maybe, just maybe they'll put him away for good once he finally stabs someone about a hundred times and hangs them upside down on a cross or something. What's the point? You want to be a vampire - okay, you're a vampire, fine. Let's ram a stake through your heart and be done with it already, problem solved.

French Politicians Call for Scream Ban

The recent murder of a 15-year-old girl by her classmate has French politicians up in arms. Apparently inspired by the slasher film, a 17-year-old boy stabbed her and left her for dead.

This is very tragic, of course and I don't want to make light of that fact, but is banning a movie really going to make any difference? Let's face it, if you're wiring is so badly crossed that seeing a hokey horror flick like Scream is going to have that kind of influence on you, probably you're not all that far from snapping anyway. What if this kid hadn't seen Scream? Probably a week or month or year down the road he would have seen some other scary movie, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or something, that would have had a similiar effect. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised, unbalanced as this individual obviously is, if 101 Dalmations would have been enough to make the voices in this kid's head start yelling "Kill!".

What's to be done, then? Do we ban all scary/violent movies? Of course not. There's a lot of stabbing in Shakespeare's works, as well. People getting stabbed left and right, among other things. If the kid had seen a production of Hamlet and then ran off and poisoned or stabbed someone a week later, would they want to ban that, too?

Pakistanis Ready for Nuclear Warfare - Mostly Because the Average Pakistani Has No Clue

It would seem that one reason for Pakistani readiness to fight a nuclear war stems from simple ignorance of exactly what that entails, with the average person on the street having no idea what atomic warfare is all about.

“They know it’s a big bomb but they don’t seem to realise how big a bomb it is or what its after-effects are."

Okay, I have a suggestion: if your population is that out-of-touch with the realities of modern warfare, you should have your nuclear bomb-detonating priveleges revoked.

Behold, the Deep-Fried Twinkie! Arteries - Beware the Crack Cocaine of Junk Food

Since the dawn of time, man has searched for a way to kill himself quickly and easily via the consumption of unhealthy junkfood. At last, it would seem that modern deep-frying technology, mass-produced, preservative-laden sponge cake and old-fashioned kitchen savvy have combined to realize that ages-old dream - culminating in the heart-stopping golden goodness that is The Deep-Fried Twinkie. I'm going out casket shopping, be back later.

Ozzy Demands Contract Signed in Blood or No Deal - MTV Execs Roll Up Sleeves

Ozzy Osbourne, America's favorite TV dad, has hammered out a deal with MTV execs for another round of The Osbournes, the smash-hit reality show featuring the semi-lucid, stumbling Prince of Darkness and his newly famous family. There were, however, a couple of catches.

Firstly, the MTV bigwigs had to consent to signing the new contract in blood (no joke). Secondly, an unspecified amount of psychological counseling for the Osbourne family's ever present pets was thrown in to sweeten the deal. MTV did, however, draw the line at a new house - but with £15million, Mr. Osbourne should be able to purchase a few new throw pillows and a couple paintings with which he can spruce up his present digs.

Was This the Man Behind the 9/11 Attacks?

Apparently, U.S. investigators believe he is. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, said to be at large in Afghanistan, is apparently a high-ranking official in the al-Qaida network and believed to have been involved, if not having masterminded the attacks. He's also wanted in connection with the first World Trade Center bombing back in 1993 and allegedly planning to fly a plane into the C.I.A. headquaters, among other things.

General Mills' Star Wars: Episode II Cereal Gets It All Wrong

Tributemania

Bounty Tributes is a talent agency that specializes in tribute bands for hire. Acts include fake Beatles, Bee Gees and a bogus Kenny Rogers, (pictured above). Their website includes videoclips and info about each act, some of which look pretty awful.

Touching People

A collection of outsider film clips. Highlights include a sauced-up Orson Welles slurring his way through a Paul Masson wine commercial, cutting-room floor footage of Anna Nicole Smith messing up line after line in an apparrently drug-induced haze and some moronic daredevil wanna-be jumping out of a tree and breaking his leg. (Warning: offensive language)

Evel Knievel Set To Take One Last Stab At Killing Himself

This is really something...my childhood hero - Evel Knievel - is getting ready to put on his star-spangled leathers once again and do a jump, at the age of 63. When I was a little kid, Evel was the coolest person on earth. I still have a little die-cast model of his Snake River rocket bike sitting on my monitor.

Evil was the perfect hero for a little boy, for one simple reason: he jumped things - on a motorcycle. More often than not, he nearly killed himself in the process, but he'd go right back as soon as he got well and do it all over again, which, obviously, made him a total god in the eyes of boys everywhere. Evel was a man's man who didn't give a crap about anything except doing his own crazy thing, which often included sailing over rows of buses or flipping his bike on asphalt over and over until he was in a coma for a month.

Now, two decades, 37 broken bones, a divorce, a liver transplant and hepatitis C behind him, Evel's decided it's time to do that "thing" again. The biker legend is planning on a two-hundred foot jump in Primm, Nevada, next spring - set to coincide with the opening of his Evel Knievel Xperience Cafe, a resturaunt offering truck stop food and sporting an Evel theme. The jump would better his previous ones, using a lighter bike and a higher approach speed.

I just don't know if this is a good idea. I mean, Evel, I love you man and I know you're going to do it no matter what anyone tells you, that's just how you are - but this is kind of like when Michael Jordan came out of retirement. You couldn't help but think that Mike wasn't going to be able to live up to his past glories and wonder whether he should be doing it or not. Of course, the worst thing that could come of Mike's comeback attempt was a little humiliation - not massive brain damage and/or death. Still, like I said - Evel is Evel and that's how it's going to be, I'm sure. So good luck, Evel and please don't die. I'm pulling for you, buddy.

One More Reason to Hate My Outdated Computer - Earth Viewer

This just looks flat-out amazing...Earth Viewer is a software program that lets you "grab" the earth with your mouse and zoom in on whatever area of the earth's surface you like, from a moveable model made up of updated satellite photos. We're not talking grainy black and white photos of objects that are difficult to make out, either - like the ones on TerraFly, which I've posted before - we're talking individual buildings and houses, in full color. The picture above will give you an idea of the kind of resolution they're offering.

Unfortunately, my pc just missed the minimum requirements, due to my woefully inadequate 2 meg 3D card. Sigh...will someone please download this thing onto a computer from this century and let me know if it's as great as it looks?

Yet Another Expensive, Impractical Toy I'd Like To Own

The folks at Parksabers make these ridiculously cool lightsabers. Just give me one of these and maybe one of those Green Lantern power battery and ring sets I posted awhile back and all of my prepubescent dreams will have been fulfilled. Okay - so maybe they were actually my dreams from ten minutes ago - still, you have to admit, these things are pretty nifty.

Penguin Warehouse, Inc.

Looking for a pet, but you want something out of the ordinary? Having troubles with that pesky "Batman" character? Maybe you just want to show of your nerdish love of Linux in the most flamboyant way possible?

If any of the above apply to you, then the Penguin Warehouse is just what you've been looking for. Get yourself a real, live, tuxedoed, flightless conversation piece from the penguin professionals. Just remember to bring cash, apparently these comical, waddling birds don't come cheap.

Sonar Challenge by DoubleYou

So maybe you'll never make it to the World Cup, you can always while away some time kicking around this socker ball with your cursor - see how long you can keep it aloft. I posted a game like this once before, but this one's a little nicer, with slightly better graphics and a wacko Japanese-speaking announcer.

iwasted15bucksonthisdomain.com

Let's Post Some Toast

I don't know what's going on lately - if it's something that's been simmering in the collective unconciousness for awhile and has finally decided to make itself known or what, but toast seemed to be making some waves in the net world of late. First, there was the article I found on BoingBoing about the artists who'd assembled thousands of pieces into a mural of a toaster. Then, just a day or so later I was at #!-usr-bin-girl and saw a post with this site: A Moron's Guide to Toast: An Online Humor Resource for Those Who Want Toast.

Well, all this toast talk got me to thinking - if two popular blogs like that are talking toast, what other things regarding it might be out there? Having no life and an ample amount of boredom on my hands, I decided it was up to me to check it out, since nobody else in their right mind was about to. I thought I'd find a couple links, a funny picture or story concerning Murphy's Law, perhaps. Soon, though, as I dug deeper, I found myself peeling away layer after layer of what seems to be a growing movement of toast-worship, a conspiracy of unimaginable proportions, brewing just beneath the surface of the worldwide web as we know it:

For example: there's an inordinate amount of toaster history at sites like Toast.org,Toaster.org and AntiqueToaster.com - who would have guessed that there was a repository of toaster information like this on the web? More importantly, why? It gets worse...

Here's a Quicktime movie chronicling the Surreal Gourmet's Toastmobile project, in which he turned his Winnebago into a giant toaster on wheels (above) and here's a page where you can order your own buttered toast pillow.

Of course, the cunning propagandists of toast, realizing the need to make their cause friendly and appealing to the average computer geek, have attempted tie-ins to popular web culture - hence this Star Wars parody someone made, entitled Toast Wars. Still, as fiendishly clever as these things are, what was the most troubling sign of this upcoming toast-takeover I encountered on my web travels?

It would have to be this, the blasphemous Toast Oracle. Be afraid, people...be very, very afraid - and keep a stick of butter close at hand, you may very well be needing it...soon.

The Merry Prankster

A man who pulls weird little pranks on fast food joints, malls and other places, such as replacing the placards advertising McDonald's apple pies with one he printed himself that features American Pie star Jason Biggs, cinema's most infamous pie lover.

Helicopter Fun

A fun, easy little flash game where you control a helicoptor and try not to smash into obstacles.