GigaOm has a good summary of an interview with my favorite Pixar mind, Brad Bird.

Tags: brad bird, pixar

I am calling bs on John Cusack's indie cred. When he's good, he's really good (High Fidelity, Say Anything). But do all the people who give John Cusack indie cred simply forgive him for the mainstream dreck he's been in?

I saw Martian Child this past weekend, and it is probably one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Watching this movie reminded me of how bad Serendipity was, and well, it was really bad.

As chance would have it, I was flipping channels yesterday evening, and while waiting for King of the Hill to start, I was subject to the last few minutes of another Cusack trainwreck, America's Sweethearts.

Lucky me.

Tags: movies, john cusack, martian child

Tags: macbook, air, lenovo

There are some eyepopping images among the ten finalists of the Wired reader macro photo contest.

Tags: macro, photography, contest

Looks like PETA has its own version of the X-Prize. $1 Million bucks to the lucky scientist who can create realistic fake meat.

Tags: peta, fake meat

Gizmodo has a nice little summary of a New Yorker article about a guy who got stuck in an elevator for almost two days. There's quite a bit of interesting elevator trivia, especially this bit:

...the Door Close button is there mostly to give passengers the illusion of control. In elevators built since the early '90s. The button is only enabled in emergency situations with a key held by an authority.

Tags: elevators

An interesting font identification quiz.

I feel pretty good about my 31/34 score, considering I'm not even close to being the font nerd I was 20 years ago... It also feels good because current font nerd John Gruber got 32.

Tags: fonts, test, john gruber

Think Geek is offering old-school e-mail for those of you who are feeling a little nostalgic.

Tags: paper, e-mail

Rumor has it that Guns N' Roses have finally finished the long awaited Chinese Democracy album.

If you're a lucky American, you might be in for a free Dr. Pepper this year!

Tags: guns n' roses, dr. pepper, chinese democracy

Amazingly, 30 years of confidential Walmart videos are for sale. Legally.

From the article:

In recent months, Flagler has opened its trove of some 15,000 Wal-Mart tapes to the outside world, with an eye toward selling clips. The material is proving irresistible to everyone from business historians and documentary filmmakers to plaintiffs lawyers and union organizers.

Tags: walmart, video

Like the Real Mario I posted a while back, Pixeloo has created a creepy looking Real Homer.



If you want to be creeped out even more, check out the talking animated version.

Tags: homer, simpson

An enterprising nerd who was wondering where his Netflix deliveries were going decided to use a webcam to keep an eye on his mailbox... and caught a neighbor stealing his inbound DVDs. The outcome? A $750 fine and enrollment in a first offender program. Mail theft is a federal crime in the US, so the guy got off pretty lightly.



I had a similar problem with one of my old neighbors, who was putting their overflow garbage on my lawn on garbage day. Back then, the City of Toronto had a 5 bag limit (biweekly), and because I only generated 1 bag, they thought they could put their excess garbage on my side without asking me (how they could come up with that much garbage still befuddles me). I used a webcam to collect some evidence, but I was finally home one day and caught them red handed. After that, they put their overflow on my other neighbor's lawn.

Tags: netflix, thief, webcam

Some guy made a canoe out of chopsticks. Awesome.

Tags: chopstick, canoe

Here's an interesting project - create a tote bag from old shopping bags.

Tags: tote bag, shopping bags, crafts

There's a nice little muppet video on YouTube that you should see.

Tags: funny, video

You can now get your resume plastered on a t-shirt.

Cool? No.

Will it get you a job? Doubt it.

Will you look like a total loser? All signs point to YES.

Tags: resume, t-shirt

The Quantum Sleeper just defies description.

Tags: quantum sleeper

Wired has a funny bit on how Delta is trying to capture your attention during those pre-flight safety briefings.

Tags: delta airlines, safety, video

Nothing makes your Monday like a Walrus dancing to Michael Jackson music.

Tags: walrus, dancing, jacko

I was trolling the Internet Wayback Machine to see what remnants of my older blogs were indexed (unfortunately, only stuff from 2001 forward), and I saw a blast from the past in my links. Sam Brown's Exploding Dog used to be one of my favorite sites when I started blogging around 8 years ago. The stick men and robot drawings made to match submitted captions were really quite endearing.

Thankfully, the site is still kicking around, and they've got a nice little rss feed going too. It's worth a look, you might even end up with a grin on your face.

Tags: exploding dog, sam brown, wayback, machine

Some young lady on Music Idol (Bulgaria) is singing "Without You" by Mariah Carey... or is it "Ken Lee"?

Here's the audition... The thing that makes this video great are the subtitles. Good stuff.



The show brought her back to perform again... her English is a little better this time.

Tags: bulgarian idol, singing, funny, ken lee, without you, mariah carey

This is absolutely awesome. Makes me wish I had a robot. And a dog. Not necessarily in that order.

Tags: robot, tennis ball, daschund, dog

ThinkGeek is selling a device called the Phantom Keystroker, which basically sends random keystrokes and mouse movements to a computer.



Plug this device into a non-technical colleague's computer and watch him (or her) freak! The best marks for such a prank are probably the ones with the shortest tempers. Just don't do it to someone with the power to fire you.

Tags: keystroker, usb, pranks, thinkgeek

First Steven Levy tosses out his Air with his newspapers, and now, Charlie Rose is sporting a shiner trying to protect his Air from slamming into the pavement.

Tags: macbook, charlie rose, steven levy

This is a bizarrely wonderful illusion.

Tags: optical, illusion

I'm not taking sides on the Democratic nomination race, but I came across a Flash animation that was hilarious and hypnotic at the same time.



Check out the Falling Hillary Screensaver. If she gets stuck, you can use the mouse and free her. The physics behind the animation is quite incredible.

Tags: hillary clinton, falling, ragdoll, screensaver

The Big Word Project could become the next Internet zeitgeist or it could just be a dud.

In any case, it's the novel concept of two Irish students.



The idea? Basically it's a dictionary with the words for sale. At a dollar a letter, to be exact. What you get in return is that the word you buy links to a website of your choice.

Geek and nerd were taken, so I had to settle for the superlatives, geekiest and nerdiest. I'll be keeping an eye on Google Analytics to see whether these novelty purchases actually translate into traffic.


It will be interesting to see where this goes.

Tags: project, definition, link, word