There are BILLIONS of barrels of oil right in the middle of the good ol U.S. of A. Billions I tell you! Shale Oil is the next big thing!!!!!111!1one

Talking about lying did you hear that congress doesn’t pay taxes, gets paid for the rest of their life even if they only serve one term, and that they feast on the dead but still warm bodies of puppies and kittens?! It’s true my uncle Sam’s friends cousins bosses gardener forwarded it to me, which means it must be true. I once read that the brand new (if 10 years ago is new) gold $1 coins don’t have “In God We Trust” on them. Wait I have one right here, nope there is no In God We Trust on the coin… Oh wait there it is on the fucking edge of the coin. See this is the problem with a large percentage of the general, they don’t really know what they are forwarding.

The unfortunate part is that many of the people who send these things are actually intelligent people, and I know they meant well when they forwarded along the message, but every person that reads this cutting edge information is another possible fish that might fall for the lies.

My real issue here is who is the idiot that first creates these false sensationalistic stories that tug on our heart-strings, hit on our religious beliefs, or social awareness. Was it really some smart person that thought they could pull a fast one on the me? Or is it some stupid bastard that thinks they can get the pitchforks and torches pulled on the targets of their deceit?

With great power comes great responsibility, and with the Internet it appears as though responsibility has got thrown out with the baby and bathwater.

Please think before you link, or forward.

Here is a list of websites that you can confirm facts on before forwarding along stories that could be deceiving or have misinformation.

Factcheck.Org
Snopes
Truth or Fiction
PolitiFact

By the way, Obama is a US citizen, Congress is held to the same laws as all citizens, the DreamAct would offer amnesty for illegals that join the military or has at least 2 years of college under their belt, AND if we all don’t buy gas one day it won’t do anything since we will buy gas another day… moron.

If you have a friend or family member that sends along emails or Facebook links to lies like those listed above, send them this email next time and maybe they will check their facts before they spread the lies.

• The Food Lab: A Better Way to Caramelize Onions (Plus, French Onion Dip!) – Just in case you are looking to make Onion Dip from scratch for your Super Bowl party!
• How to Create a Portable Hackintosh on a USB Thumb Drive [Hackintosh] – Nice little tech thing to have if you do support work.
• In praise of the sci-fi corridor – Den of Geek – Great article about the look of corridors in Sci-Fi.
• Touch Trigonometry – A nifty interactive trigonometry graph and circle featuring the six basic trig functions.
• Guy Makes Comedy Videos Asking For $1 Million… And Gets It – Pretty funny story of a comedian that asked for a million dollars and now appears to be getting it. It’s funny because I had a idea like this with letters to rich people.
• Boo! -
• YouTube – Browser-IT CROWD – Oh how I love the IT Crowd.
• YouTube – Marisa Tomei is obsessed with hula hoops – The video where Marisa Tomei hula hoops…
• Baconnaise | Serious Eats : Recipes – Yes… You too can make your own Baconnaise at home!
• YouTube – GTA 4 Carmageddon – 2! – This is a pretty cool video of Grand Theft Auto if you set the friction settings to a negative number. It’s just pure car armageddon!
• Space Jam – Wow.. the website for the movie “Space Jam” is still online…
• Home | Trunk.ly: Never forget a link – Pretty cool site to use to save all the links you share on different social media networks.
• Spaceflight Now | Delta Launch Report | Mission Status Center – Check out all the links for January 8th. Great pictures of the Shuttle Enterprise!
• A gadget’s life: From gee-whiz to junk| The Washington Post – Here’s a look at which gadgets have gone from obscure to ubiquitous over the past 30 years, and how their prices shrank along the way:
• MealShare.org – food. friends. fellowship. – A site to help you share meals with your friends.

During the last couple weeks we’ve been doing a bunch of yard work, getting the yards in as good a shape as we can this year.  Other than that, we haven’t really done much.  So I guess I will just post the links…

Cool Music
I can’t remember if I shared this band yet on here, but Rock Sugar is an awesome band.  The lead singer was the guy that did the voice of Wacko on Animaniacs.

Food Stuff
Four articles from Serious Eats that I thought were great to share.  How to Salt Food, 6 Things Every Griller Needs, Top 10 Tips For Making Better Burgers, and  Mastering the Art of Burger Blending.  I’m very interested in getting a grinder for our KitchenAid Mixer and blending my own meat!  If you are interested in finding a local fruit and veggie or even meat CSA you will want to check out both Local Harvest and Eat Wild.  Too bad there aren’t really any close by meat CSAs in SoCal.  I did recently discover that we have a local grass fed beef rancher 5 Bar Beef, we are going to try some of their ground beef tonight for burgers.  If you want to know more about beef cuts, this poster is great.

Beer Stuff
Make had this cool weekend project for a portable homebrew cooler dispenser, that I might give a try when we have a party.  Talking about beer, Floating Sheep has some maps about bars and areas where there are more bars than grocery stores.

Funny Stuff
When you are buying a home, the most overlooked requirement is Zombie Protection!  Well OC Reader has you covered if you are looking for a home in Orange County.

Cool Sports
If you are looking to buy some tickets for a game or even a concert, Seat Geek has you covered in helping you find things for the best price available.  They forecast if it’s a smart time to buy of if the price will be going down and suggest you to wait if you are buying the tickets on sites like StubHub, Tickets Now, or Ticket Network.  Plus they will graph out the ticket locations for you.

Cool Sites
CNN Money’s 20 best Money Sites.  Mensa’s 50 top websites.  Groundspeak, the team behind Geocaching.org are slowly making their way into the geolocation game with Whibbit, looking forward to see how it compares to Foursquare and GoWalla.

More Cool Stuff
Probably should have been in the food section but I love that this site will locate Where is My Milk From.  Science has discovered that as the use of porn goes up the amount of sex crimes goes down!  Take that feminists!  After you are done watching some porn, check out these awesome airports, I’m not sure if I want to land at any of those…

And last but not least, videos.
I think I will show this one during my Defensive Driving training classes I do.

Photoshop CS5 Content Aware Fill, it’s amazing what photoshop can do nowadays.

Sir Mix a Lot like But-terfingers

Awesome TV Theme duet

Food Stuff
For Super Bowl we had a small party with our parents coming over to watch the game with us, I wanted to try and cook buffalo wings, but wasn’t at all in the mood for frying them up, I found this awesome recipe two days before the game for cooking up crunchy buffalo like wings in the oven from Serious Eats, you owe it to yourself to cook them this way!  I also found this cool site that reviews all the interesting snack foods out there called Taquitos.net, they have everything from national brands to regional favorites.  Lastly if you are the type of person that is interested in trying your hand at brewing your own beer check out this quick blurb on Lifehacker about two free open source programs that will help you with your goal.

Music Stuff
I haven’t had much music stuff lately, but I had to share this awesome project that Michael Deal is working on that is a graphical exploration into the Beatles and the creation of their music.  This is a project and any true Beatles fan will want to check out.

Sad Stuff
For those that don’t know the Mars rover Spirit is stuck and can no longer move, so they have pretty much pulled the plug on the project, xkcd has a sad comic to show us that rovers have feelings too.

Funny Stuff
If you are a friend of mine on Facebook you might have already seen this, but if not, check out this graphic on How to Suck at Facebook.   I’m proud to say I don’t do any of those things listed, so I must not suck.  If you saw the Google commercial during the Super Bowl (which was my favorite ad) you saw a clever use of their auto complete feature, the site Autocomplete Me turns the auto complete feature into a interesting look at what people search for on Google.

The Lego Millennium Falcon!

Cool Stuff
I just found this today but I wanted to pass it on, someone has taken the initiative to educate today’s men on what they need in their wardrobe, with Newbie Fashion Tips for Grown Men.  It really is a good group of tips and suggestions on how to look your best.  Wardrobe Oxygen takes it a step further, but I have to disagree with some their what to remove from your wardrobe section.  I’ve been wanting to get some Lego sets recently to put together for fun and I was checking out the online Lego store, they have a $499 Star Wars Millennium Falcon, a little more than I want to spend (it is 5000+ pieces though)…  I’ve seen a couple places recently selling recycled bottles that have had their tops cut off so you can use them as glasses, here is someone that decided they could just make them instead.  Check out this great article on the 19 Most Complex and Dangerous road in the world, I’ve seen some of these on Top Gear, the Road of Death in Bolivia looks like a bitch.  If you know me you know that Kelly and I met online, so I find the research that OkCupid is doing on their dating site is extraordinary, they recently wrote an article about profile pictures, and I highly suggest anyone that is doing any sort of online dating read their articles, they will help you make a better personal ad.  Example, Men: don’t make eye contact and don’t smile, Women: make eye contact and a flirty face.  And the last of the cool stuff, this blog post regarding the changes to the Crayola color spectrum throughout the years.

Not Cool Sports Stuff
The Chicago Cubs have thought up an complete asshole plan, they are going to charge a 20% premium on those that purchase tickets the 1st week they are on sale, and then after that they will be the normal face value.  Talk about scalping your customers.  I hope we don’t see this become a trend.  (edit, this is nothing new they have been doing it for 8 years.)

Cool Videos
Some geeks have figured out an awesome use for Microsoft’s surface, Dungeons and Dragons!

D&D on the Microsoft Surface from CrunchGear on Vimeo.

Hot Tub Time Machine will be the movie event of the year!

Someone has edited all the violence from the 2010 Super Bowl commercials into one epic Youtube video.

And last but not least does this sound familiar?

I recently took advice, and was able to learn from the advice, and this is excellent advice. I gave over 50 other advices using similar methods over the course of the last four months, and have continued to do it for the next two months. The keys:

1. Ensure your first sentence is bolded. There is nothing more annoying than having to read a whole paragraph, we could simply read the first sentence. Making it bold makes it stickier in your brain, and will increase the adviceiness of your advice. When in doubt, also use italics.
2. Be sure to use a numbered list. If you give a list in paragraph form, it carries far less authority. People like numbers when they are receiving advice. Numbers mean accuracy. Numbers mean conciseness. Be sure to give things in numbers.
3. Make one short. At least one of your pieces of advice should be one sentence.
4. MAKE ONE IN CAPITALS. Make at least one piece of your advice in capital letters. However, do not fall into the trap of making this piece of advice your one sentence piece of advice, because no one likes a piece of advice, which is both short and capitalized. There should be more than one sentence.
5. Adding a colon: is an invitation to have the reader jumping to your list further. Though it is nice to have things in bold, coupled with the trailing colon makes you wonder just what exactly might be after that colon.
6. End on a feel-good. The ideal feel-good is elusive: you want something that is attainable, but is also a bit of a reprimand. Try things like “you can do this: but you will need to try very hard.” Or, “this will work for you-though at first I didn’t think it would work, it ended up working for me. Believe in yourself.”

For those of you that didn’t see the pictures I posted 2 weeks ago, we put up our Christmas lights, we also got our tree decorated (pictures will be posted at the end of the month).  The past couple weeks we have been taking care of our Christmas shopping and also prepping the house for the first of what will be many Christmas parties our house will be the host of.  This Sunday is my dad’s side of the family’s Christmas party, we should have about 20-30 relatives in attendance.  And then on Christmas day we will have a party for my mom’s side of the family, which will be a bit smaller but will also include Kelly’s family (actually both parties will include Kelly’s family) and any friends that want to come over.  Work is winding down for the year as goals have been met and projects have been completed, I’m happy to say I still have a job that I enjoy although this year was a lot different from the previous two years due to the lack of new hires our department had to train.  Kelly’s business is doing well, although we did have a decrease in business compared to 2008, but we are in good standing.  All the animals are happy and healthy and we are all looking forward to the new year.  I’m proud of myself for keeping up with my Weekly Cool Links project, even though it’s not quite as ‘weekly’ as it claims to be, I hope someone out there finds some entertainment in me sharing what I find interesting.  Lastly my Eat in OC project has been doing great, I typically have around 5000 visits a month and I’ve made some major inroads with gaining new readers.  I’ve been linked to on a number of local websites, and high-profile local blogs, and in addition my articles are routinely linked to in the Orange County Register’s Community Blogs section which is only 5 links deep from their front page, how many others can say something like that?  I’ll probably post one more time before the year ends, but for now let’s move on to the rather large links section!

Food
Lifehacker had a great article on maximizing Thanksgiving leftovers that will also prove useful with Christmas leftovers.  While over at Slashfood they had 4 fast recipes for making great Tomato sauces.

Tiger Woods’ Women, er I mean Chicks
Some of these links may not be safe for work, or family friendly.  But this is my blog so if you don’t want to see possibly scantily clad women don’t look at the links in this section.  If you are related to me and offended, oh well, I’m sure you have something else you can be proud of me for, get over it… ;)
Twitter is a wonderful tool for communication and for people to share pictures with, some pictures are more interesting than others as you can see from this collection of Hot Chicks that use Twitter for the powers of good.  I do not approve or disapprove of their use of Twitter…  Maybe Twitter chicks aren’t your thing?  How about Chicks dressed in various NFL Team Jerseys?  What’s that?  You like farm girls?  How about German farm girls that model to help German agriculture?  Here you go.  Personally I like my girls a little different from the norm.  Lastly there is the Internet’s Girlfriend…  Funny how I’ve been on the internet for 15 years yet hadn’t heard of her till recently.  One suggestion for her site, more pictures like this and less like the one on the top of her website…

Sports
It got so bad at Notre Dame this year that after they fired Charlie Weis they went straight to the big man in the sky and offered him the head coaching job.  The Onion reports that Jesus Christ himself turned down a 3 year multimillion dollar offer to coach the Fightin’ Irish.  Maybe he was just holding out for the right job?  Such as this Head Coaching position with the Lingerie Football League!

Cool
Virgin Galactic has launched their official site for the space travel, complete with Spaceship Two pictures and information on the roll out.  Never would have thought space travel (even of this kind) would be available to the general public in my lifetime.  Lifehacker had a number of cool informative posts the past couple weeks, including Fixing Your Relatives Computer, Guide to Avoiding Online Scams, and the Most Popular Top 10s’ of 2009.

Funny
I read three comics online; Order of the Stick, Dilbert, and xkcd.  I’m particularly fond on one of the Dilbert comics from this week, because it’s how I feel at my job sometimes.
Another one from this week that really hits the mark is this one regarding the use of FAX machines.  As for xkcd I have to give some love to ‘Daylight Saving Time‘.  Looking for a last-minute gift for a friend or loved one?  How about, How to Date a White Woman or the Gangsta Rap Coloring Book?  All these and more really do exist!  If you are single and looking for a Russian Mail Order bride one of the companies involved has started to compare them to celebrities!  Now you too can date a girl that sort of looks like Jessica Beil!  Just make sure you ask them these 10 questions from Deadspin before you ask her to marry you, it will save you a lot of heartache.  And lastly, now that you got your celebrity look a like wife, it might be a good time to reflect upon those stupid things you did when you were young and might regret someday…

Videos
My website is currently sponsored by Bitch Slap The Movie!, in theaters: January 8th, 2010!

If you know anything about the movie, commercial, or TV show business you might find some humor in this.

I love reading Maximum PC and listing to their podcast, I love this video someone put together from Gordon’s rant of the week regarding the Apple Tablet.

And last but not least at all, the Space Shuttle is awesome and this high quality video of the STS-129 launch is worth spending 15 minutes to watch.

STS-129 Ascent Video Highlights from mike interbartolo on Vimeo.

Oh and Merry Christmas!

UCLA Sucks!

What better way to celebrate what we are thankful for than to watch the USC Trojans beat the UCLA Bruins?

Proud USC Fan.

We’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving at my in-laws, and then on Saturday we are going to cook our own turkey at the house.  Not much else going on.  We did get baseboard put in living room, dining room, and hallway a couple weeks ago, things are really coming together with the house.  We will be having 2 Christmas parties at our house in December, one for my dad’s side of the family and one for my mom’s side of the family (which will include Kelly’s family at both/either of them).  It’s going to be a very busy December!  Work will be busy the first two weeks as well since I have to train new hires on high-speed online, but it shouldn’t be too difficult.  That’s about it from here so let’s see what I have to share this week.

Cool Food

Cheeseburger in a Can!

Have you ever been out camping in the wilderness and wished, “Boy I wish I could have a cheeseburger right now!”.  Well the wait is over, with the cheeseburger in a can!

Cool Stuff
When I was a kid I loved reading the various Choose Your Own Adventure books, I found this site that someone has analyzed all the books and has a bunch of data about them, with cool graphics and color.  It’s a pretty neat read if you loved those books as a kid.  Some more cool stuff, but in a much different way are these Civil War pictures (warning some of them are not for the faint at heart), I’d never seen this collection so it was an interesting look into battlefield.

Buying Stuff
If you are looking for the best cheap stuff to get for Christmas, check out this site called Cheapism that has reviews on cheap things.

Funny Stuff
Another weekly cool links and another great site to see pictures of people and go, what the fuck??  This weeks pick is Why the Fuck Do You Have a Kid?  You will be saying the same thing when you see this collection of pictures.  I’m sure a number of UCLA alumni are pictured on that site.

TV Stuff
Anyone that is both a sports fan and a fan of The Office will love this take on The Office done by the Kansas City Chiefs.

Videos

Everyone loves a douchebag.

Watch out for the Shiny Suds in your shower! (Loofah!  Loofah! Loofah!)

The best song of 2009 Show Me Your Genitals (NOT SAFE FOR WORK and people without a sense of humor)

Don’t miss his other great hits also on Youtube!  And you can purchase his songs on iTunes!

Bohemian Rhapsody, The Muppets Style!

Now, on to the links!

TV Stuff
If you have ever wanted to know more about the themes that make TV writing then I highly suggest to take a couple hours to browse and read around TV Tropes.  It’s especially a great read for anyone that’s ever wanted to learn the tricks of the trade for writing anything from Comics to TV.

Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, what’s the difference?

Music Stuff
Looking for music like the music you like?  Check out Musicovery, a music discovery service.  Doing a search for Jimmy Eat World on there actually links me to a number of other bands I’ve also enjoyed throughout the years.  Pretty impressive.

Here is a funny music video

Chicks Man
If you are interested in attractive philologists, check out Hot for Words.  She’s not really my type, but hey I know there are a lot of you out there that like big boobed blondes.

Check out these chicks melting ice.

Food Stuff
Lifehacker had an article this week on 10 Simple Freeze Tricks to Save You Time and Money.  Info and links about what can be frozen (Broccoli yes, Onions No) to how to make your freeze more efficient.  It’s a good starting place for many people.

Windows 7 Stuff (Tech Stuff)
So yesterday Windows 7 was released.  I’ve already been using it for 3 weeks and think it’s pretty great, especially the 64bit version because nothing beats using 8 gigs of RAM on a computer (except 16 gigs).  A number of websites had guides for Windows 7, but Lifehacker’s Complete Guide to Windows 7 is the most comprehensive, plus it links to lots of other great starting points to learn more.  If you are looking for a more historical look at Windows, you have to check out Maximum PC’s 50 Best (and Worst) Moment’s in Windows History.

Funny Stuff
Check out Life’s pictorial on 30 Dumb Inventions, how about those screaming tomatoes, and to think people follow that crackpots “religion”.  I only read Maxim magazine for the articles, that’s why I’m sharing the 10 People in Every Office article they recently posted.  Lastly check out Stuff White People Life and Photobomb for some more funnies.

Oh no the Pixar lamp killed the letter I!

Halloween Stuff
Halloween is coming up so Kelly and I are working on making our place a little spooky for the trick or treaters that were are expecting (our first Halloween with them).  So far we have lights up on our porch, and three pumpkins.  I’m exploring the use of dry ice in our flower bed to make it a bit foggy, and also looking at some other options for scariness.  Recently I found this section on Halloween Props over at Instructables.  I’m thinking of trying my luck on one of two of these.

Software Stuff
It’s here again, the top voted software from Lifehacker, this list is from their April to September voting.  Lots of good stuff there, and most of the software is free or has free versions to try before you throw down some money.

Cool Stuff
Ever needed to open a Master combo lock that you lost the combo to?  Well you can either do it by figuring out the combination (about a 5 minute process if you follow this guide) or you can use a cut up soda can… The choice is yours.

Hey I Have Van Heusen Shirts!

Funny Stuff
Bootysweat must be checked out personally to appreciate it, that’ the most I’ll say about that.  I highly suggest creating the video for a friend at the end.  For anyone that is a How I Met Your Mother fan, you’ll appreciate the website, It Was The Best Night Ever.  And lastly what Weekly Cool Links isn’t complete without some sexist vintage advertising?  For more great “vintage” ads check out Marcy Writes.

Cool Videos

Like always I have some videos to share.  First video is a link to an SNL parody video of the Disney Vault, really looking forward to checking out 101 Fellations!

So this is what my parents were up to in their teens!

Can’t wait for Lost to come back, but this can hold you over till then.

Lastly a list of Fan cuts of TV shows and movies like the Lost one above.

Pam & Jim.