Making My First YouTube Video

I've always been a big fan of online videos, especially the viral stuff on break.com or youtube.com. Since I don't own a video camera, I never was able to create one of my own to share with others.

Then, one day, I realized that my digital camera was able to shoot small movies! Plus, I could edit them together in iMovie on my new Mac! Brilliant!

I just needed a subject, then -- inspiration hit: our boss wanted us to take some old laptops and throw them out.

Coming soon to this website: "How To Destroy A Laptop"!

...and I thought my commute home was long!

It almost sounds like the setup for a good joke, "This Mother of 8 boards this bus for home, gets lost for 25 years..." but it's crazy!

Crazy!

Jaeyana Beuraheng told her eight children she accidentally boarded a bus bound for Bangkok instead of Malaysia, and once there she boarded a second incorrect bus because she could not read or speak Thai or English, The Times of London reported Wednesday.

Beuraheng, who speaks only the Yawi dialect used by Muslims in southern Thailand, said the noise and traffic of the big city confused and disoriented her, leading her to board the second wrong bus to Chiang Mai, near the border with Burma.

Okay, so now she's home, right? Her kids are all 25 years older, right? What do you think the chances are that they give a crap who she is?

"Mom, you've been gone 25 years -- don't you tell me about picking up my nasty underwear! At least I know how to get back home!"

Oh, snap!

Read about it here.

Mike On Fire

Mike On Fire, originally uploaded by macfixer.

A doodle I made on the whiteboard at work. It depicts my co-worker successfully solving another 'minor issue' with the calm, cool, collected demeanor of a true professional.

Why is the bad guy from Robocop following him? Got me, but it seemed funny at the time I was drawing it.

Halo

Halo, originally uploaded by macfixer.

My friend, my nemesis, my favorite game on my Mac (thats not emulated).

Bungie did a great job on this one.

An email from Dad

I was supposed to head down to Long Island this weekend to celebrate my sister's birthday today, however Nature being the funny gal she is, gave me a fever and a head cold instead. My dad sent me this email this morning.

Try to take it easy this weekend. Rest up and
get some frozen wings for the superbowl. Rate the commercials. We
might go to your sister's house to watch the game. I might make a cauldron of
chili. Erika and Mom are begging me to make it mild. Jerry and I just
stare at them in disbelief. Mild chili on superbowl Sunday? Isn't
that a sin or something? Didn't Moses bring down a tablet from the
mountain with the "Shall not's" a long time ago, and one of them I
believe said, "Thou shall not weaken the chili on football
weekends"? I read that somewhere. I think I'll make bologna with
mild mustard sandwiches on white bread (Tip-top) with the crusts cut
off, sliced in triangles, a pickle on the side, for the ladies and
Gkids. I'll be damned if I'll commit a sin at my age. You never know.
I want to go to the pearly gates with a clean slate. Excuse me, I
have to go buy the jalapenos.

When I went online to tell him how funny his email was, we had this exchange on iChat:

Me: I just read your email. You have a knack for it.
Dad: Did you laugh in the right places?
Me: I think so.
Dad: Dinner will be at six. Fly in. I'll pick you up in Farmingdale.
Dad: I thought the email hilarious. I've reread it many times. Still laugh.
Me: let me warm up the Learjet.
Dad: Sometimes the funny stuff just happens. I really don't think a lot about it. A Lear? Impressive!
Me: Why don't I have a Learjet? I ought to. I'm putting it on my Christmas list.
Dad: Probably you didn't like the color.
Me: I'll make sure to buzz your house at Mach 2 before touching down at Farmingdale. That way you know when to leave.
Dad: You need something in a mauve.
Me: mauve? too 70s. i want "Joe Namath Fur Coat White"
Dad: Why not just bail out. You won't have to pay the landing fee.
Dad: Most of the trees are down in our property so there's lots of room for the parachute. Be careful of the cable wire. i want to watch the game tomorrow.
Me: do they have ejection seats on Learjets? Probably an option with the "Super Sport" package -- along with Deluxe floor mats and a special anti-rust undercoating.
Me: better yet, I want the single-seat space ship George Jetson took to work every morning. Folds up into a briefcase.
Dad: You won’t be the pilot. You must have forgotten. You don't know how to fly a jet. I never told you.
Me: I played a lot of video games growing up, piece of cake.
Dad: You have a point. Reconsider anyway. It is dangerous when you pilot a jet. What's the worse that can happen when you play a video game? You don't advance to the next level. But you're still alive.
Dad: I say hire a pilot and you just bail out at mach III.
Me: I’d get chapped at that speed.
Dad: Wear your mittens. It’s cold out there.
Me: lot of wind. I’ll wear a scarf, Red Baron style
Dad: I have to go. Go on line. See if you can find a Learjet manual.
Me: Mom tells me there's no snow there. Better put out an old mattress so I have a target
Me: I want my Learjet with "3 on the tree", baby
Dad: Will do. What size coffin do you want?
Me: just put me in the chili pot, one less thing to wash, and I’ll go out smelling like jalapeños
Me: I'm sure mom is going to love this exchange
Me: you still show her our conversations?
Dad: You bet. She looks at me strangely afterwards. She's way too serious. It’s her German genes.

How To Shower Like A Woman / How to Shower Like A Man

As my wife is fond of saying, "It's funny cause it's true"

Adult Swim Apologizes

After the city of Boston went all bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S) over Adult Swim's Aqua Teen Hunger Force marketing blitz, they issued this apology:



It's pretty sad, considering:

1. They were up for 3 weeks before the bomb scare was called in.
2. It was in 10 (TEN!) cities total. No other city did this sort of thing.
3. Have you looked at this thing? A light up sign giving the middle finger! Total stealth bomb!

Anyway, I digress. Boston sucks. There, I said it :-)

Adult Swim Ad Causes Bomb Scare

Adult Swim Ad, originally uploaded by Vanderlin.

Some idiot mistook this sign as a bomb. The Boston bomb squad came in and...

why am I bothering to regurgitate, here... read it for yourself.

Can you see this, Denver? I'm doing it as hard as I can...

Human Slingshot

What do you get when you mix one girl, one bungee cord, and one ATV? A human slingshot, of course!

Un-effing believable!

LifeDrive Discontinued

If you check out the LifeDrive's page on Palm.com, you'll notice that it's listed as "No longer available". Dig a little deeper and you'll find the truth:

Moon Patrol

Moon Patrol, originally uploaded by macfixer.

It's 1989, I'm staying after school in the school library to play Moon Patrol on my high school's Apple IIe. I'm with Mike, David Erb, and possibly an Englebrecht or two... and my nemesis is this game. I'm absolutely lousy at it.

Now, courtesy of the internet and emulation, I can exact my revenge on Moon Patrol and finish the game! Woo-hoo!

Of course, this was only the 'beginner' level, and finishing it meant I had to then hit the 'expert' level.

Error Message

I tell ya... some days, I just don't understand Windows at all.

Now THAT'S Cold!

Now THAT'S Cold!, originally uploaded by macfixer.

This is what greeted me waking up this morning. I hear it's -6 over in Cape Cod, MA (hello Spivvy!)

That Just Ain't Right

Just found out a real close friend of mine found a growth where a growth ain't supposed to be. He's not worried, but I am. How messed up is that?

UPDATE: The tests came back negative, and my friend is fine. Which is cool, being that he totally thought it was cancer and that he'd need some heavy-duty treatment. Word.

Transfixed

Transfixed, originally uploaded by macfixer.

My sister was in town this weekend, so we had a dinner that was an experience. It was a dinner for 7 at this place called "Rainforest Café" -- which is a jungle-themed place for families to eat. The kids get to eat things called Shrimpkins (don't ask) and The Volcano -- and the parents get to drink booze and drown out the pain caused by all the overactive kids jumping up and down while imitating the gorillas.

Yes, the place has gorillas , elephants, snakes, and butterflies (not real ones, animatronic ones). Wild stuff. In the middle of all of this chaos, Alex spilled his drink on his pants, and poor Erika had to run next door to the Gap and get him some new pants, which were not necessary because they had dried by the time she got back.

It's total sensory overload. They have all these animals making animal noises, a water fountain with Atlas in the middle, a overhead star scene (complete with shooting stars), and a thunder storm every 15 minutes, which spooks all of the animatronic animals. Did I mention the drinks for the parents?

...after all that, went to the kid's museum the next day.
Apparently we're all suckers for punishment.

What If George Lucas Got A Chance To Redo "Singing In The Rain"?

It would look a lot like this:

Requisite iPhone Post

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah iPhone Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah OS X Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Internet Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Wireless Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Cingular Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Bluetooth 2.0 Blah Blah Blah iPod Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Cover Flow Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Steve Jobs Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah rumor mill Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah "Treo-killer" Blah Blah Blah iSync Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah touchscreen Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah lickable.

Thank you.

Greatest Goal Ever!

This is funny. If my dad was a hockey fan (and whose dad is, I mean really...), I know he'd be yelling and screaming at the screen the whole time.

Unbelievable.

Saddam Execution Video

No, I'm not going to post a link to the video, because it can be found in all of the usual places. It's graphic, real, and raw. Should it have been surreptitiously recorded? Probably not. As one of the officials said when they saw the cameraphone in the hand of someone in the mob, "Please stop, the man is being executed, please stop."

Stephen Moss writes:

The man. Not the monster, the butcher, the tyrant. Saddam's killers have achieved the impossible: they have made us feel sympathy for him, for his grace under pressure. There may not have been dignity in the dying, but there was courage. A five-star death.

However, "this man" is not just any man, and the people most interested in seeing the video, Iraqis -- as we're being lead to believe -- wanted to see it firsthand. What better way to capture history these days? The future of video truly belongs to cameraphones. Maybe Time Magazine was right all along?

edit: Added quotes from The Guardian and Stephen Moss

edit: Picture removed

Apple's Teaser: What does it mean?

If you were to head over to Apple.com, you'd notice this picture:
What does it mean? You got me -- you'll have to wait for Macworld Expo like the rest of us. However, the strange glow has me wondering: "Does it have something to do with the new Mac OS X interface, AKA Illuminous?"