Politics / Funny
2010 CA Protection of Marriage Act, someone has decided to take protecting marriage one step further by trying to get a bill on the ballot to ban marriage.  Sure it’s to poke at the Prop 8 people, but honestly, divorce ruins marriage and hurts more children then any gay marriage ever would.

Cool Stuff
Comparisons of Inaugural Addresses, this is a pretty cool diagram of every presidential inauguration speech that compares the words used against all the other presidential inauguration speeches.
Handwriting Tips Penmanship – NYTimes.com, I’ve always been fascinated with handwriting and really liked this article about how the human mind sees it, and the best forms of handwriting to use so people can understand it.  I’m glad the writing I use is already considered the most efficient.
Online Dating Advice: Exactly What To Say In A First Message « OkTrends, for all my single friends out there, looking to score online, this is a must read.  They analyzed a number of 1st messages sent on a dating site and found the words to use or not use to get the most responses back.
Swingvine shows you what’s popular on the web, right now.

Tech / Funny
Penn & Teller, this iPhone application will trick your friends into thinking you have Penn & Teller on your speed dial to help you do magic tricks.

Funny Stuff
Hot Chicks Picking Up Dog Shit, Taking hot chicks with douchebags another direction.  Also don’t forget to check out their sister site, Hot Chicks with Dogs with Boners…  Sadly I’m not kidding.
Probably Bad News: News fails, because journalism isn’t dying fast enough., I’ve been criticized for my writing abilities, but these guys get paid to write…
What Stormtroopers do on Their Day Off | WildAmmo.com, Who hasn’t wondered what they do?

Food Stuff
Food In Real Life, Great site that compares what’s on the box, to what’s in it.

Videos

Amazing San Francisco Blue Angels Flybys!

Maxim Magazines Campus Cuties 2009.

First off with the start of the NCAA College Football Season I have to kick off my links with this awesome video.

USC opens their quest for the Division 1 championship on Saturday at 12:30 PM (pacific).  Talking about college football anyone that loves college football should really check out my friend Brian’s website, In the Bleachers, the #1 College Football blog and podcast in the world!

Food

Tactical Bacon, there for you when you need it!

I already know how to cook a whole chicken, but I’ve never cooked a whole one in a slow cooker, it’s a great way to get it done with minimal effort.  I’d also suggest checking out the main $5 dinner site, she does a great job sharing the wealth on the ways she’s able to make good cheap family diners.  Bacon is the coolest thing on the internet since sliced bread, and now you can make sure you are able to enjoy the salty smokey goodness of bacon during the next natural disaster with Tactical Bacon!  (thanks to my friend Dippy for the link).  And while you are eating your bacon, why don’t you learn how to cook up a bunch of hard boiled eggs in the oven… Wait are those oven cooked eggs?!

Interesting
According to Carnegie Mellon‘s Death Risk Rankings, the chances of a age 30-39, white, male, from California dying in the next year is 1,537 out of 1,000,000 (wait I fit that description!).  In addition here at the top 5 and the number out of 1,000,000.

Cause of Death – MicroMort
Total – 1,537
Accidents – 408
Circulatory system diseases – 187
Suicide – 173
Cancers – 143
Infectious and parasitic diseases – 141
Homicide – 101

Geeky Stuff

Time Travel!

I love this travel time-line that someone put together based on popular TV shows and movies (I’ve included to the left for those too lazy to visit the site.)  If you’ve ever wanted to check if your favorite user name is available at 130 websites all at one time, then namechk is the site to go.  Warning it could be used for both good and evil!  Good in the fact that you can find 130 websites to register your user name at, bad for the fact that you can find 130 websites to register someone elses user name at so they can’t!

Funny Stuff
Kelly and I are thinking about having a child…  Actually no we aren’t but what better way to bullshit your way out of work and responsibilities than the Office Kid, complete with pictures and drawings!  If having a fake kid isn’t your idea of funny then check out the People of Walmart a place to see pictures of those interesting individuals that shop the crappiest store on earth.

Tech Stuff
Just an FYI for those that keep sending me MMS messages to my iPhone, Sept. 25th is the big day that I will actually be able to see them from my phone!  About damn time AT&T!

And lastly I leave with you a couple more videos.

Pretty cool Old Spice commercial (I really enjoy their advertising and commercials)

College Humors modern take on West Side Story with Web Site Story!   I highly recommend checking it out!  You got to go to their site I can’t embed it.

MBA in 2 Minutes

1. Revenue – Costs = Profits
2. Businesses without customers are not in business
3. You must do everything you can to attract and retain customers

Besides work not much happened the last couple weeks, we had a couple various family gatherings, a relaxing 1 week vacation, and saw a couple movies.  Funny People (3 Stars) and 500 Days of Summer (3.5 Stars) you can check out my movie reviews here (more reviews to come as I catch up!).  Lastly I’m getting into golfing and bought some new irons last week, that should be arriving at my house today and I’m looking forward to playing 1-2 times a month if possible.

On to the Weekly Cool Links!!!!

Music
I have a bunch of music links this week, most of them about finding new music, something I struggle with because of my specific eclectic preference.  I’m always interested in finding more music I might like, iTunes DOES NOT CUT IT with their recommendations, even Genius is just sort of ok, but Lifehacker put together an article on articles and ways to help, with their Top 10 Tricks for Making Your Playlists Rock.  There is Project Playlist which can help you find music, generate playlists and create ringtones for you.  Lastly if you are looking into turning an old computer into a “media server” you might want to check out Amahi, doesn’t require much power or high priced tech to get running, and can stream to just about anything, in addition is has lots of features that compare to those of Windows Home Server!  And lastly, I thought I would share an artist I discovered yesterday, this girl can do wonders with just a ukulele and has a very pretty voice.  She is also playing in Long Beach in a week or so.

Movies
Not much on the movies front this week, but how could we all have missed the production of Lesbian Vampire Killers!  Most of the reviews say it’s pretty bad, but come on with a name like that it has to be at least entertaining.

Sports
I found this gallery archive of Iconic Dodgers Photos from Sports Illustrated.  My favorites include the picture of Sandy Koufax’s no hitter, if you look closely on the chalkboard someone wrote and then erased that he went 0 for 4 in the game.  Also love the picture of two of the best pitchers ever in baseball, Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax.  Glad that they included one of my favorite Dodger of all time, Orel Hershiser.

TV
If you happen to know anyone that is looking for a job, perhaps Veridian Dynamics might be just the place.  Well regardless if it is, I highly recommend that you check out the two episodes of Better off Ted that will be on this week (Tuesday 08/11/09 at 9:00 P.M.).  Or maybe you are like me and you just accidentally want to somehow download all the TV shows you are interested in so you can watch them later on your own time and without advertising… Well ShowRSS might be able to help you out…

Tech
If you don’t know by now, both myself and Kelly have iPhones, and one way I keep up with the release of free applications I might want to check out is by visiting FreeAppAlert, actually I have them on my Twitter, but I check out their website via their feed there.  Talking about the iPhone I’m really stoked to see that the FCC is interested in getting to the bottom of the application approval process at Apple after their denial of the Google Voice app.  I was really looking forward to getting to use my Google Voice number, hopefully these questions that the FCC has made will get Apple and AT&T to stop with the antics.

Neat Stuff (probably tech oriented)
Did you know that my relative and US President John Quincy Adams is tweeting?!!?  It’s all being done by the Massachusetts Historical Society, as this article explains.  J.Q.A. kept a 1 line a day journal 200 years ago while he traveled to Russia to be the first US Ambassador to Russia.  According to my calculations he’s currently just off the coast of Canada make his trek to Russia.
View Larger Map

On to present day, I really thought this graph by the New York Times showing how people spend their day was interesting.  I love the data that have put together and the ability to filter through it and see some specific groups.  For those of my friends that enjoy beer, and especially Miller Lite, they are soon to release some new draft technology to be used in the home.  This one should probably be in the tech section, or maybe I should just make an iPhone section, but someone has come out with software that allows one to track what is in their pantry and allow it to link with their iPhone to help create shopping lists and keep your pantry items up to date.  With the integrating of the pantry list on your computer you can have an automated shopping list that updates to your iPhone pantry list!

Local
That’s right I have a local section, but not much to report.  OC Register posted a list on Certified Farmers Markets throughout Orange County, although it doesn’t include the one in Stanton on Mondays (unsure if it’s a certified but I could have swore it was), also check the comment section for most lists.  Lastly, Gustavo Arellano at O.C. Weekly wrote about an article he read in a Jewish satire magazine, in which porn star Joanna Angel praises the sausages from Mattern Sausage in Orange for, “Its curved shape was good for hitting my G-spot and, because it was a smooth surface, it was also great in my ass.”  If that’s not a praise for their sausage then I don’t know what is!  What Gus didn’t mention is that there is actually an article and pictures of Jenna von Oy from Blossom fame!!!

Videos

Ladies, is this what it has come to?  What extracurricular activity does the Shake Weight resemble?

Are all the people in Santa Cruz like this, or is their something wrong with the water?

Don’t forget the Aspray next time you have issues with your body odor.

And lastly I had to include this awesome time-lapse video of Disneyland construction, it’s amazing how quickly they were able to do stuff back then, compared to the time it takes today.

Have a great week!

Sports
The USC Football 2009 Media Guide is OUT!  And you can go and print out your own copy for freeeeeeeee!  I expect everyone that I know personally to carry their copy with them at all times and to show me it when I ask for it.

Music
I don’t know how current these album covers are from Russia, but wow those are quality with a capital T.  Is that Pete Townshend?

Movies
For those of you closely following my blog you may remember me mentioning RunPee about a month ago.  Well RunPee has created the #1 reason why anyone should get an iPhone, the RunPee application!  Now you can quickly check when is the best time to pee while out at the movies!

TV
Tonight (July 10th) one of my favorite TV Shows returns, with the final 10 episodes of Eureka on the newly renamed SyFy (SciFi Channel).  If you haven’t checked it out, you really need to, the show is quirky and fun.  Or if that is too mellow for you, how about purchasing some of the newest porn from Hustler (link is safe for work)?  TV shows remade into Porn movies!  Such as This Ain’t Star Trek XXX and Not Three’s Company XXX.  I’ve purchased a box set of all volumes… Ok I haven’t really, but it’s still funny.

Fun
The internet was made for fun, but before the internet there were other fun things (many of which still exist) such as Dungeons and Dragons, Satan’s game!  Oh wait, no it’s not Satan’s game, it’s just a freaking board game with imagination, but anyway, did you know that playing Dungeon’s and Dragons actually is a great tool for learning things about business?  I have to agree, just as I agree with those articles that say playing Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games get people ready for real world scenarios.  And let’s continue with the theme of lists of 10 with a top 10 list of things NOT to buy with your credit card.  Credit card companies don’t just deal with numbers, they also write up psychological profiles based upon the purchased you make, and these items bring up the red flags (don’t worry I boought my boxed set via Paypal!).  I see you a top 10 list and raise you to the 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads of All Time (I’ve included my favorite to the right).

Tech
This is usually my favorite section, since I’m a big tech geek.  The biggest tech news of the week has to be Google’s official announcement that they are working on a Google Chrome Operating System, it’s about time they actually just came out an admitted to it, after a couple years of speculation.  For those of you tech support people, the guys at Support Details might help your job be a little easier, with their website attempts to auto detects settings on a customer’s computer.  Some of you might have noticed that I have a Twitter account (and you can follow me and the posts here there!) well I present to you the Twitter 10 Commandements. Yeah I know I do 1 or 2 of those (such as Auto-Tweet).  Oh and last but not least Google Voice now lets users change their phone number that they originally got randomly from Grand Central, you even get to try and make a customer #, I was able to get us a phone number close to our home number.  We are going to start using the Google Voice number when we give out our number to people.

And lastly I present some of the best videos I’ve found on the Internet the past 2 weeks.

Very neat video by a Japanese band that must a been a bitch to produce and direct.

Can you flush a whole roll of toilet paper down a airplane toilet?

What watch he does to get the top button of his shirt snapped, that’s awesome!

Which to you prefer, the A Hole or the B Hole?

First let’s start with personal stuff, I got a fraking ticket last Saturday!  Sad part is I didn’t even do what the officer said I did, oh well.  I’m contemplating fighting it in court, but I don’t even know if it’s worth it.  Our bathroom is almost done.  I know I keep promising pictures, and I keep meaning to post them, but I’m going to wait till it’s completed (which should after I get home from work on Friday).  We have also been working on getting the cabinet doors painted and hung up in the kitchen, we are about 3/4 of the way done after we were able to hang up 5 of the doors last night.  We are trying to get as much as possible done before our big 4th of July House Warming party that we are having next Saturday!  Many pictures will be taken and I’ll make sure I get them on here ASAP.  And lastly I’ve been doing my best to get my ass in shape the last three weeks by going for walks 3-4 times a week.  Last night I broke my current record by taking a 4.11 mile walk averaging 3.5 miles per hour.  I’ve been using a site called Trail Guru along with my iPhone to keep track of my adventures (Kelly has been going with me most the time as well).

Without further ado, I bring my weekly links.

First I’d like to pay tribute to one of my favorite quaterbacks of all time. We really are going to miss you Brent! (from As Seen in WI)

Cool Websites
Moving on, have you ever wanting to make a decision but weren’t sure which way to go?  Then give the site Hunch a try, it will ask some questions about you (the more questions the better it knows you) and then it will attempt to help you have a decision.

Cool Tech
Windows was really in the news this week with the announcement of pricing for Windows 7 ($120-320 depending on what version), to be released on October 22, 2009.  The Home Premium upgrade will be $120 but if you act now you can get it for $50 on preorder, or if you act from now till the 28th you can walk into Micro Center and get a coupon to purchase it for $39.99 once it’s released!  Microsoft also released a beta version of the brand new Microsoft Security Essentials, which is basically a lite version of Anti-Malware / Anti-Virus software, good for those of us that don’t need the extras included in the pay versions of those types of software.  I’m using it on a number of computers already and find that it has a very small footprint, so far I like it and will be recommending it to friends asking for help.  Another thing I recommend to friends when they ask is Firefox.  Firefox is just about to have their next big update with the 3.5 version coming out very soon.  In the meantime I’m suggesting people check out the Lifehacker Firefox Add-on Packs, which will greatly improve your internet experiences.  I haven’t checked this piece of software out personally yet but if you are in need of heat mapping out your wireless network you might want to get ekahau Heatmapper out, it’s supposed to be pretty sweet.  And to wrap up the cool tech from the week, check out this USB Microwave that is in the works!

Cool TV
Those of you that know me, know I really enjoyed the Drew Carey show.  I’ve now started keeping up with him on his new blog, Drew From TV.  He has insights from The Price is Right, soccer, and from just life in general.  I’ve always liked Drew and he would be one of those guys I feel like I could just site down with and talk to for hours.  One of my favorite mini-series of all times was Band of Brothers, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg did an awesome job, and now I’m looking forward to their next World War II mini-series, The Pacific (click link for article and trailer).  This one has a very fond place in my heart since this where my grandfather fought, I can’t wait!

Cool Music
This guy took the time analyzing a bunch of data to figure out what bands have the most passionate fans.  It’s a pretty cool read, especially if you like numbers, and I’m happy to report my favorite band Jimmy Eat World is on his list, along with a couple other bands I enjoy.

Cool Games
I’ve heard a lot of really positive press about this game coming out for the Nintendo DS called Scribblenauts, sounds like a major breakthrough in games.  If PC gaming is more your thing, and you are cheap, then you might want to check out Download Squads list of the 25 best free cross-platform games.  There are some very solid games in the list, and best of all they are FREEEEEEEEE.

Cool Funny Links
Check out these amazing INTERNET SEX PHOTOS! – completely work safe!
Have you ever bought something via the internet (re:Craigslist) and were confused when the description was a little off?  Well check out Item not as described, which does it’s best to archive those items that just don’t really fit their description!

Cool Sports – Video of the Week!
I know it’s more like audio of the week, and I know I’ve posted this in the past, but sometimes you just gotta stay with what entertains you.

So analog TV is dead, long live digital TV!  Not much new this week for us.  I’ve started going for walks at night, up to 6 miles so far this week, hoping for 10 by the end of the week.  I haven’t started the 100 pushup challenge since no one told me to.  But maybe I’ll start it this week.  Our friends Sean and Amber came over with their baby Jade, we had a really great time watching the Laker game.  I cooked chicken and steak kabobs with red onion, green bell peppers, and some of our tomatoes.  The kabobs tasted great thanks to my olive oil and garlic mix that I baste them with while I’m cooking (along with some salt and pepper).  The bathroom is coming along, the huge tub is in and all the walls are up, tile should be getting done next week.  I’ll post some pictures this weekend of how things are coming along.

And now it’s time for my weekly cool links, 3 WEEKS IN A ROW!  I’m on a roll!

If you cook like we do and you like a variety of sauces and condiments, you might want to check out the Table of Condiments, it shows you when it’s best to throw out things that have been sitting in your fridge.  Talking about food check out these pictures of school lunches around the world.  Talking about lunch I “brown bag” it 4 out of the 5 days of the week when I’m going ot work, so I’m going to take some of these tips at Lifehacker on ways to make it more appealing (I already have been doing some of them).  I find that cooking more meals for dinner help make lunches for appealing since you get more variety instead of just a sandwich.  In addition I want to get some nice lunchbox ware to take my lunches in so I’m going to look around the To-Go Ware website and find something that fits my needs, probably something like a tiffen.

There is lots of new tech coming out, iPhone 3GS, Windows 7, Google Wave, etc, and Lifehacker has put together a article explaining it all.

Wow that’s it, that’s all I have this week that probably interests anyone, I have some other links I kept for myself but nothing really that I think is that interesting.

But before you go, FlickChart has opened up their beta to the public and I’ve been rating movies (over 700 so far).  Here is my All-Time Top 20 according to the rankings (it’s pretty close but not perfect IMO).

Your Top 20
Of All Time

1. Forrest Gump
2. The Lord of th…
3. The Princess B…
4. Hot Fuzz
5. Saving Private…
6. Juno
7. Across the Uni…
8. Star Trek
9. American Pie
10. Raiders of the…
11. Sweeney Todd
12. Office Space
13. Rushmore
14. High Fidelity
15. Almost Famous
16. Serenity
17. Iron Man
18. Forgetting Sar…
19. Wall-E
20. The Dark Knight

Some of them are there just because they haven’t gone up against movies I like a lot more yet, so the rankings are a bit of luck, even if you’ve ranked movies over 900 times.

And then lastly I leave you with an infomercial gone wrong…

What are these advantages of being a big guy that the big guy speaks of?

First on the home front, Kelly and I have been working lots on the house, especially on the yard this past week.  We over seeding all the grass and are in the process of putting some topper soil over it all to help the new see grow.  In addition to that our tomatoes plants have really took off and we already have a bunch of tomatoes growing, soon enough we’ll be able to have our first taste of our first home grown tomatoes!

Back to the links.  USC Football linebackers made the cover of this weeks Sports Illustrated! Looking forward to the NFL Draft this weekend and seeing where the former Trojans all go.

Macs never get viruses…. Right.  That’s why they are becoming zombie computers and doing DoS attacks due to a trojan that is infecting Macs.  Glad to see a programmer taking the time to show Macs aren’t perfectly safe either.  My webhost (Dreamhost) is offering TWO FREE YEARS of webhosting to the first 1000 Geocities customers that make the switch to a real webhost.  That’s a savings of $200 bucks!  And if you aren’t a Geocities customer you can still get great service and sign up for them from this link here (although it’s not free).

Google has a great new mobile version of their product search online now!  Specifically for iPhones and Andriod phones.  Looking forward to utilizing it while I’m out and about shopping.

My favorite computer magazine, Maximum PC just released an online article where they built a $500 Kick-ASS PC that can run Cyris at 40 FPS, pretty good bang for your buck!

Don’t forget about the big gay storm and the need for the super-umbrella!

Last couple things.  I was reintroduced to a card game that I used to love to play in high school called Tien len and just wanted to share it with everyone, it’s great for 3-4 players and simple to learn.  If you read through the rules I suggest to play with the alternate rule that you don’t have to match suits on pairs and straights because that just makes it a pain in the ass.  Just remember hearts are always the high suit!

And lastly, SAVE CHUCK!  Chuck has been one of my favorite shows to watch the past 2 years and it would be a disappointment for NBC to take such and good show off the air and continue to air crap like The Apprentice.  Come on NBC!  Go here and see what us fans can do to try and help Save Chuck!  I hate Subway and I might even end up eating it on the night of the season finale just to do my part to help the show.

First off let’s start with an interesting discovery that workers are 9% more productive when they get some free time during work to browse around the internet.  I’ve been a big supporter of this since internet was enabled at my work and I’ve personally felt the effects of this with me.  It lets me get my mind off work and refresh.  Lifehacker has a round up of all their “Best of the Best” votes they’ve had since January, it’s a great list of useful programs and internet places to get things done (everything from people searches to browsers).  Want to see if your username is available on a multitude of websites (social networking and etc.) all at one time, well then check out Namechk.  And in the same sort of tone, there is Domain Search for checking domain names.  Gizmodo reports that the QuickPWN team has already released a Jailbreak for iPhone 3.0 Beta, I won’t be checking it out, since I’ll wait till the official 3.0, but glad to see they are well ahead of the release.  Oh and lastly, from OC Weekly’s Navel Gazing Blog the Universal Free Church has launched a proposal to ban Mormon marriage, in an attempt to bring awareness to religious freedoms and religious free speech.  I’ll be signing the petition because I believe that no religion has the right to push their agenda on anyone else, but I’m sure most of you already knew that’s how I feel.

Anyway, I’ll try to do this weekly, or monthly, or as often as I can remember and get time for.  Expect a personal update later.