Match Head Artworks

I was looking at Boingboing awhile ago and they'd posted this site. Pretty neat, the guy makes sculptures out of match heads and then sets them ablaze. His website includes pictures of various things he's done as well as clips of the actual lighting of the sculptures.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Here's hoping all of you reading this have a happy turkey day and don't get too drunk and fat. Might I suggest a turducken?

Here's a Couple of Flash Games for the Heck of it and Because I'm too Tired to Blog Right Now

Crab Ball and Tempest 2000.

I Feel Good!

Domino Art

Making portraits and pictures (custom, if you like) out of dominoes.

It's the Virtual Drinking Buddy!

Nobody to bend your elbow with? Never fear...

Farmsluts

Okay, this one's not for the dial-up people, so much as the broadband folks. Being one of the downtrodden souls in the world without cable or DSL in their homes, I wouldn't even have seen this myself, but for the fact that by the time I'd realized it was fifty megs in size, the first few minutes were loaded and it was just so hilarious I had no choice but to finish downloading it and save it.

It's a Quicktime movie short from Fox Searchlab, exploring the dark comedic twists a man's life takes when a buddy emails him a "not-safe-for-work" url. It was well worth the wait.

Oh...by the way - despite the title, it's not explicit or anything, I'd give it a PG, so don't sweat it.

Neil's Mame Cabinet

Yet another do-it-yourself M.A.M.E. (multiple arcade machine emulator) cabinet. It's a nice one, too, this guy's loaded for bear. Neil takes you through the step-by-step process he went through on the road to perfecting his ultimate arcade dream machine. I'm drooling here, it's been so long since I played a decent game of Robotron, with the right controls for the job.

We Didn't Start the Fire

A Flash tribute to the Billy Joel song, with illustrations and a heartfelt plea by the author to "please not sue" him. Hehe.

Full of Shat

"Another William Shatner Worship Page" diefying everyone's favorite starship captain and dotcom pitchman, brought to you by the Fellowship of the Shat.

Evil Goatees

In the world of television, from Star Trek to Knight Rider, evil twins abound. Whether they're from other dimensions or simply siblings who've gone taken the wrong road in life, all are marked by one distinguishing trait. They look exactly like the hero, but for the fact that they're sporting the "evil goatee", the only thing that physically sets them apart from their clean-shaven (and thus non-evil) doppelgangers.

One word: Ouch.

Okay, there's been so many crazy things going on in my absence I don't know where to start.

First off, an important public service announcement...despite the extremely horrifying nature of this story, if it saves one person out there reading this from suffering a similiar fate, it's worth posting this. If nothing else, everyone should be informed.

Be careful and use that laptop responsibly. Specifically, don't use it while it's in your lap or you might wind up like this poor, poor scientist, who burned himself in the worst possible way by doing just that. The victim was wearing his pants and writing a paper for two hours (uh, yeah) when he noticed a burning...well, if you want to know the rest you can read about it here, don't worry, there are no pictures - however, words like "crusted" and "wounds" are bandied about, so you may want to put down that donut.

OMG! Look, He Updated His Page! It's Alive!!! It's Alive!!!
Hi there, folks, me again. I'm still trying to sort out that topsy-turvy, issue-filled, anxiety-riddled, daily beatdown that is my life world outside this glowing monitor, so, unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time and/or initiative to blog this motha out properly. Heck, I even managed to forget about The Ends' recent one-year anniversary without so much as crowing about it a little.

Tonight, however, I was sitting here, thinking of the frustrated looks on my readers' faces as they sat there at home staring at my page...day after day, week after week...compulsively hitting the "refresh" button on their browser in anticipation of my leaving a precious post or two to peruse and I said to myself, "What the hell, let's do that update everyone's been clamoring for!"
Hello? Is there anybody there? (sounds of crickets chirping in an empty theater)
Oh well, just in case there are still a few of you hanging in there, your patience has been rewarded. I've sorted out a few things, hopefully, and I feel a couple posts coming on...so let's get on with it and get this ball rolling while I'm still half awake, shall we?

Sorry Folks...

I apologize for the recent lack of posts, my dad's been having some pretty serious health problems. Things are looking okay now, though, so hopefully I won't have as much on my mind and can get back to posting more often soon.

Meanwhile, here's a link for the retrogamers out there - fond memories of Tron, the videogame. I really liked this game at the arcade, it's not as much fun on an emulator, unless you have the right controls, I suppose. Still, no replacement for that cool glowing stick.

Teddy Turns 100

The teddy bear is a hundred years old...and seeing as it doesn't talk, walk, read you stories or have a USB port, I predict it's iminent death.

In Search of...Historic Mickey

Is this 700-year-old picture found in a church fresco Mickey Mouse? His ancestor? A beaver? Decide for yourself...

Instant Atari

Avon's selling an Atari emulating joystick - there's no console involved, you simply plug the vintage-lookalike controller into the RCA jacks on your television and you're ready to play any of ten included games, such as Asteroids and Yar's Revenge.

Getting the Lead Out

Sculptor Dalton Ghetti makes intricate sculptures from the lead of pencils and for added difficulty level, he doesn't even use a microscope. Obviously, the process takes forever and the risk of destroying your creation is ultra-high, leaving you with a broken piece of pencil lead after all that effort. I find these kinds of artists, the ones who work with unusual/weird/difficult mediums really interesting, you have to wonder what makes this guy tick, what drives him to work years on one of these pieces.

Radial Pong

A JavaPong game with a twist.

The Steady Hand Game

Can you navigate the trail with your mouse?

Super-Small Tetris

A mega-tiny version of Tetris so small you have to watch on an electron microscope.

The Colossal Colon Tour

What better way to raise colo-rectal cancer awareness than by crawling through a 40-foot long, four-foot high replica of a human colon? Who needs Disneyland when there are attractions like this travelling the country?

Speed Cube

Video of a guy solving a Rubik's cube in 18 seconds. The whole story of the cube can be found here - apparently Rubik didn't really have a puzzle in mind, he was just playing around with geometric designs and when he'd built it, turned it a few times and realized he couldn't get it back to it's original state to save his life, he knew he was onto something.

Pavlov the Dog

Flash 'toons about a hapless lab dog named Pavlov.

Digital Charity

I think I posted this site already, long ago but it's certainly worth repeating and now that I think of it, worth putting up on my permanent links collection as well, which is an oversight I'll be sure to correct a.s.a.p. Digitalcharity.com is an easy way for you to give a little, with a bare minimum of fuss. It's a selection of sites that - with help from sponsor programs - will allow you to contribute to various charities simply and easily. Just pick a charity, click a link and you're done. In fact, I'd say it takes a total of 2 minutes (if that) to click through all the ones listed at the top of The Hunger Site page and they're all worthwhile causes. I particularly like the Animal Rescue Site - each time you click, sponsors pay for a bowl of food for a homeles, sheltered animal - but I'm making it a point to go there each day and click all of them since it's so easy, like I said, there's really no reason not to.

A more extensive list of charities like this can be found here on this page, which a poster on Fark owns and offered up in one of the forum threads regarding makethatdifference.com, yet another charitable meta-site.

My Way

My Way is a new internet portal that's out to compete with the big boys and really seems pretty worthwhile. While Yahoo!'s main and their "My Yahoo!" pages use Google, the results were filtered through the Yahoo! directory instead of just giving you the straight up results of a normal Google search, which bugged me. I couldn't configure my address bar to use Google as it's default, either, which also bugged me. Sure, I could just use Google as my start page but I also like having the news items and other stuff I have on my Yahoo! start page when I connect, so I can get a quick look at what's going on in the world and make sure there's no crazy smallpox outbreak, nothing's blown up, on fire or nuked as I drink my morning Mountain Dew.

My Way to the rescue. Not only is there a straight-up Google search bar, complete with the "I'm feeling lucky" button, but it's practically a carbon copy of Yahoo's main page - without all the extemporaneous junk they've started adding of late. My Way loads up superfast (up to 53 percent faster than Yahoo! according to their boast, which sounds about right) and I get my news and my handy Google search. Worth a look if you're a Google devotee and you want a good, fast-loading start page with google, news, etc. and a minimum of crap.

Halloween Leftover

Yeah, Halloween is over but this was just too funny not to post. A collection of mind-bogglingly cheesy kids' costumes from days gone by. Gabe Kaplan? Chachi? I pity the poor children that had to wear these monstrosities, especially the poor little guys whose parents bought them the Leather Biker Village People Guy costume pictured above. Probably they still bear scars from that one.

::bloggar.w

Is a sweet little blog interface that works with Blogger, Moveable Type, etc. My friend recommended it the other day and I've been playing with it. Easy to set up - just download the program, enter your Blogger name and pass as normal and you're ready to go. There are handy menu items for doing mundane tasks like inserting spaces, text color and other things.

Bugging You

A cute little Flash 'toon from Smilepop. The rest of their cartoons and e-cards can be found here.

Happy Halloween!

What with the trick-or-treat season upon us, I thought it might be nice to post a little spookiness in the way of Halloween-related websites. Since I have a little theme going here I'm doing this all in one post and will probably be adding to it in the next day or two, so if you were here recently, scroll down and there may be fresh sites added. By the way, the picture above is a thumbnail of some Halloween wallpaper I made in Photoshop awhile back. If you'd like to download it for your own desktop, click here for 800x600 version, here for the 1024x768 and here for 640x480 sized.



Bloody Finger Email

Send your friends a scary Flash e-greeting, written by a horrible, bloody finger.



Because Nothing is Scarier Than Clowns...

The Evil Clown Generator.



The Haunted Foyer

What's scarier? Jan's tour of the haunted house...or the midi music she liberally used on the page? You be the judge.



The Castle of Death

Real-life horror - the story of America's first recognized serial killer, H.H. Holmes and the house of murder he built in 19th century Chicago, where the depraved druggist practiced his horrific trade.

A Ben and Jerry's Halloween

Ah...I love a good bowl of Ben and Jerry's. The ice-cream making duo have loaded their website with Halloween-themed wallpaper, games and other goodies in honor of the season.

Scary Sounds

A big collection of spooky wavs - doors creaking, screams, sounds from horror movies and more.



Scary Movies

What would Halloween be without a good scary movie? There are TONS of sites on this topic, here are a few nice ones:

Upcoming Horror Movies is devoted to keeping you up-to-date on the latest fright flicks, with news, articles and trailers.

The simply named Horror Movies site is full of news, rumors and information for the movie-making insider as well as the fans, with message boards and other points of interest regarding the industry.

Horror Movies That Suck - for those who'd prefer something a little cheesier, with reviews of classics like Bride of Chucky and the forgettable Dracula 2000.

Pumpkin Carving

The how-to's of the art of making Jack-O-Lanterns, with instructions, tips and links for supplies and related sites.



Dracula Tour

For the really die-hard fright-fans among you, why not the ultimate Halloween vacation? A full-tilt week-long tour of Transylvania - complete with the focus on the real-life Count Dracula - you'll see his birthplace, his grave and get to inspect every nook and cranny of the Count's castle, made famous by the Bram Stoker novel, Dracula. With a masquerade ball, four-star treatment and a full-to-bursting itinerary of things to see as you trek across Vlad the Impaler's former haunts, this could be the best trip a horror fan ever takes.



Trick or Treat!

A short, funny little Flash 'toon about some trick-or-treaters getting the (ahem) crap scared out of them.

Well, that's all for now - if you find yourself in need of anything else - costume ideas, more Halloween websites, whatever - just go to Halloween Magazine for tons of stuff. History, links, costume ideas, recipes, etc. Don't pig out on too much candy, okay?

Maybe the Best "Dumb Criminal" Story Ever

Some idiot decided it would be a good idea to use the microwave at the local 7/11 to dry out his marijuana - even though there's a cop in the store. Meanwhile, dude's buddy is fast asleep in the car outside, big old sacks of pot sitting in plain view in the console. Way to go, losers!

Doonesbury on Blogging

The thirty-year-old comic takes a look at weblogs (click next for more related strips).

So it's Like, Ummm....Halloween and Stuff?

Odd Todd's thrilling, chilling Halloween special.

Taco Bell Offers Free Tacos for America if Angels or Giants Hit Target

In Game 5 of the World Series, the taco chain promises that if either of the contending teams' batters strike a 15-foot diameter floating target in the stands, everyone in the U.S.A. gets a free taco. Go, Barry! I want my taco!

Darwin Award Competition

"Sure, you can play with Dad's gun - if you'll just eat your soup!." That's more or less what a mother in Portugal told her four-year-old son. Being four, however, (and regrettably ignorant of such things as safeties and proper gun-handling) he not-surprisingly shot her in the stomach.

I don't think anyone could have seen this accident coming. Only now, after the fact, does it seem obvious that giving preschoolers loaded weapons is a bad idea - at least until they've been properly trained.

tv@famousaspect - The Near Future of Television

Ends friend and ally, Jason (proprietor of the endlessly-entertaining Atomgrid) has a new project up and running - a great little newsletter that aims to keep you informed on what's coming up on the small screen. The good, the bad and the putrid are picked and panned in this very readable mailing that'll give you the heads-up on TV goings-on. Sci-fi fans should be especially pleased with it, although most anything of interest to the genus couch potatus is represented in the issue I just finished reading. If you like TV, you really need this - so get off your Dorito-inflated rear end and subscribe now!

Play it, Baby, Play it!

A cool little Flash movie of a guy playing guitar.

Black People Love Us!

We are well-liked by Black people so we're psyched (since lots of Black people don't like lots of White people)!! We thought it'd be cool to honor our exceptional status with a ROCKIN' domain name and a killer website!!

Opera Baby

This has a little off-color language, but since it's nothing you can't say on television nowadays and it's so funny, here it is, enjoy.

Bobble, Bobble

Well, it looks like the latest craze is bobbleheads, those wonderfully tacky little figurines with the bobbing ceramic/plastic heads. My friend Bill showed me this site, Bobblehead World and they have some pretty good ones, like the Buddy Holly bobblehead shown above, political/sports/media figures, musicians, advertising icons and even animals. In fact, you can even send in a photo and have it tacked onto a bobble's face or have your own custom designed bobblehead done.

Come On DJ...Say the Name of the Song, Please? AGGGHHH!!!!

If you've ever had that experience - you're in the car or at home, listening to the radio and a song comes on that you like, only to be faced with the frustration of not knowing what the name of it was or who the artist is - YES.NET may be for you. Just find your city and if the station is among those listed, you'll be able to view which songs were played over the last several hours and at what time they came on, along with the option of buying the cd at one of the major online music retailers, like Amazon. A nifty idea whose time has come.

Look, Up in the Sky...it's a Bird, it's a Plane, it's a...Pumpkin?

Pumpkin hurling, the practice of firing pumpkins at high-velocity from trebuchets, catapults and air cannons.

Superhero Cliches

The Fight-And-Become-Friends Rule: A. A man and woman who hate each other must be sexually attracted. B. Training-- A character in training meets someone who starts out as a rival, then they become friends, then enemies. C. Most common-- whenever two heroes meet for the first time, they MUST fight.

The Monster Salary Timer

Pick a celeb and see how fast their cash pours in as the seconds and minutes tick away. For an extra dose of humble pie, enter your own salary and watch them side by side to see how you're doing by comparison. It's kind of amazing to see the dollars and cents add up in real-time. I mean, you hear Oprah makes 150 million dollars a year and that's kind of abstract, but watching the money tick off second by second puts things into perspective. In the time it's taken me to post this article, Ms. Winfrey made $9,000. In an hour she'll have made approximately $75,000.

I Used to Believe...

A place for people to chuckle over the silly things they once believed to be fact when they were children - goldfish heaven, the Tooth Fairy, etc. Some of the readers' stories are pretty funny.

Safer America

Safer America is the name of a boutique that's set up shop a few blocks from the Ground Zero and bills itself as the world's first "anti-terrorism store". Their stock includes gas masks, radiation detectors and the like.

Pong Remembered (Again)

Yet another article about Pong, the action-packed, graphically-stunning progenitor of modern videogames with lots of good pictures of various old systems. What can I say? I can't resist a good Pong article.

Prize Winning Poultry

A gallery of weirded-out blue-ribbon chickens.

Pixel This

Matt's Mess - Online Playground is an interesting little design/game/blog site that focuses on those wonderful little points of light on our monitors we call pixels. I've noticed over the last year or two this pixel-art look is showing up more and more and if you'd like to learn a little about it, Matt has tutorials on giving your icons, artwork or site that slightly retro videogame feel...teaching you a little about the specifics of the medium, blending colors with pixels, etc. Pretty cool stuff.



Your Mom's So Fat She Fell in Love and Broke it

Your Mom.com - the internet's first "Your Mom's So ___" joke portal.

Blogger's On the Fritz

So I guess I'm just going to go ahead and write this stuff and post it all in one big lump later. Don't you hate when that happens?



Krispy Kreme Behind the Scenes

I found this earlier while browsing Atomgrid and I know at least a few people out there who really love Krispy Kreme donuts. Probably my Canadian friends would say they prefer Tim Horton's, which I'm sad to say I've never had the pleasure of trying but, if you're a fan of the original glazed and ever wanted to know pretty much all there is about the world-famous donut, of which 2 billion are cooked every year...this is your lucky day.

Hometown Gal on The Bachelor

I could really care less about this show, however, I have been meaning to catch an episode - a combination of morbid curiousity and the fact that one of the bachelorettes this time around is from my hometown of Albertville, Alabama.
Looks like she's still in the running, too, so maybe I'll catch it tonight. I saw one episode of the first season and was pretty disgusted with the show overall. Gotta hand it to the girl, though, this is a pretty small town and it's rare anyone in the media has anything to say about it. Other than Rusty Greer, the pro baseball player, the only other semi-famous person I know of who came from Albertville was a Playboy Playmate of the month named Angela Little (guys, I'm not gonna link that one, you know how to use Google) so hey, she managed to get her fifteen minutes without even getting naked, good for her - though I did hear there was some semi-sordid hot tub stuff in the opener. Never met the lady but oh well, she's a Tide fan...so what the heck - good luck to you, Brooke, hope you win - though if you don't, never fear, our intrepid webmaster Jimmy Olsen is single and available ;)



When You're Smiling, the Whole World Smiles at You

Or at least they'll give you some odd looks if you get yourself one of these finely detailed tooth paintings. Yep, I don't know why you'd want to, but if you're of a mind, this fellow will do a work of art on your chompers. He specializes in miniature works of art on porcelain crowns. I bet this guy'd love to get ahold of the Osmond family. That'd probably be like his own personal Sistine Chapel.

Curling

A Flash version of the game - sling your curling stones against the computer and try and get your stones closer to the center. This was actually pretty fun. The computer always throws it's stones towards the center, so keep that in mind when you're deciding where to put your shots.

Hockey Uniforms

Since I posted the Football Helmet Project earlier, I suppose I'll go ahead and give equal time to hockey - this site, here's the complete history of hockey uniforms. This one's for you, Hockeygirl.

Sam's Mailbox Picture Collection

A bunch of pictures of oddball mailboxes.

Digitized Photos of Days Gone By

The NYPL (New York Public Library) Digital Picture collection has 30,000 digitized images (of NY and other subjects) that are in the public domain. Browse by topic or search for pictures.

The Helmet Project

An "atlas" of football helmets and football helmet history. Yes, that's right - everything now has it's own webpage. Pictured above, my personal fave, The Crimson Tide's helmet, of course.

TV4all

A really spiffy internet portal for live television broadcasts with lots of channels from all over the world. For the most part this is for the broadband audience among you - there are a few 28k-56k streams, but the folks with fat pipes will probably get the most from this one. Enjoy and remember, nothing personal broad-banders...but I hate you.

Let's Go to the Movies

Or at least post a few sites regarding them, since I can't think of anything better to do. I downloaded a few songs off a movie soundtrack the other day (I'll leave you and the RIAA to speculate over which one) and coincidentally come across this site, Score Baby! shortly thereafter. It's a celebration of movie scores from the 60s, 70s and beyond, with special attention given to the "groovy" stuff. Lots of sound bytes, reviews and a movie score radio station, via Live365.

Speaking of scores, Ray Coniff, who copped a Grammy for the Dr. Zhivago theme Somewhere My Love died recently. He was 85 years old.

More stuff for the film score fan can be found at Film Score Monthly and if you'd just like some movie sounds to add to your windows theme or playlist, where else but The Movie Sounds Page, with tons of .wav file snippets of dialogue and sounds.

Perhaps you're not in a listening mood and you'd rather nitpick and criticize - if that's the case, head on over to Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics, where you can ponder things such as why, exactly, whenever a car in a movie so much as goes into a ditch, it's immediately engulfed in flame and/or explodes.

I failed to mention it and probably anyone who cares knows, but the trailer for the next installment of The Lord of the Rings is online. I also heard of a couple off-the-wall movie projects that are in the works - believe it or not, they're going to make movies out of the television shows Bewitched (with Nicole Kidman possibly playing the role of Samantha) and Dallas. I think the Globe and Mail news service summed that one up nicely with their headline, "Good God, here comes Dallas: The Movie". My sentiments, exactly. It's beginning to look like they'll make a movie out of anything at this point - I swear, when they start production of Mr. Belvedere: The Movie, I'm going to boycott cinema altogether.

Wow, when I began this post twenty minutes ago I wasn't really taking into account just how many sites there are out there devoted to movies and how many quality ones, at that - what the heck though, I'm just gonna keep on tossing them out there until I get sleepy, I suppose. For those of you in a reading mood, you can check out Drew's Script-O-Rama - with links to movie scripts and other random cinematic stuff. Pete's Movie Page and Movie Ring has tons of links to trailers, etc. Then of course we have the old standbys: The Internet Movie Database, Ain't it Cool News (where I stole many of the preceding links), Roger Ebert's column and his shared page, Ebert and Roeper....did I mention there were a lot of movie-oriented sites out there?

Here's one for the Drive-in fans, titled, simply enough, Drive-in Theater, which discusses their history, famous Route 66 drive-ins, concession stands and everything else related to the silver screen of the outdoors - old movie ads and even a screensaver featuring intermission characters like the dancing hotdogs. Drive-in Movies is another site devoted to the medium, where you can reminisce about summer nights and creature-features with other site visitors and search for drive-ins in your area and check up on their history. Beware the sappy midi, don't say I didn't warn you.

Finally, for the do-it-yourself types, why not just make your own movie?

Okay movie buffs, I've run out of steam, in the words of Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that." Tune in later when I'll possibly be able to think of something more earth-shattering to post about.

New at Orisinal

Orisinal has some new games, I particularly like this one, called Bauns. It's sort of like Collapse, kind of hard to explain, though. You clear off little tiles by pulling back and firing a sort of slingshot and sending a marble out onto the playing field. Keep hitting and the timer resets, miss a few and more tiles are dropped. A very cool game, maybe my favorite of theirs so far.

Matchstick Mayhem

Six matchstick puzzles - move the matches to solve them.

Silly Scientists

A Silly Putty physics experiment filmed in Quicktime. Two guys drop a massive ball of the stuff off a building for the sake of science.

The Paper Airplane Flight Simulator

Since I've posted so many paper airplane sites (odd, since I haven't thrown a paper plane since I was in high school) it seems only fitting that I include this paper airplane flight sim. Just set your angle, thrust and elevator and you're ready to simulate a world-record paper airplane throw, which is rated by feet, maximum altitude, time aloft and revolutions.

I Will Not Obsess Over The Simpsons

Someone's made an applet that writes out everything Bart Simpson ever had to write on the chalkboard in The Simpsons' opening sequence.

Now That's a Die-Hard Gamer

Man dies after playing videogames for 86 hours straight.

Fairy Tales for the Erudite

"The more efficacious to gourmondize your sapid corporeal substantiality, my gobbet," he vociferated, and with an expeditious gambado the maleficent dastard manducated the woebegone tellurian. Surfeited, the scelerate picaro summarily dossed.

Would You Like a Pie With Thaaaat?

I don't know if it's just late or what, but this had me dying of laughter.