I can understand the creation of some form of entertainment, but a 90 minute musical...about Wal-Mart?!
At last year's annual shareholder meeting, Roehm oversaw the creation of a 1½-hour-long musical celebrating the retailer, which culminated in a ballad entitled "My Life Began the Day That I Met Sam," a reference to company founder Sam Walton.
I know this may be a weak article to mark our return to the web, but I fell asleep on my couch and woke up watching a commercial for the MXZ Saw, the only saw you'll ever need. I had a hunch this was a probably a REALLY crappy product with ridiculously poor potential, so I did a little digging. I didn't have to go far before I found this webgem hiding on Amazon.com:
The good news is that you could probably let your little boy play with the MXZ SAW because I don't think it poses any genuine threat to "snails and puppy dog tails." And while a person probably could use this saw to commit suicide, unless that person was extremely young, chances are they would die of natural causes before the deed was done. I'd say that what you really have here is the world's largest nail file. And speaking of "file", someone probably should file a lawsuit against this company for misleading advertising. I'm sorry, but I can't even cut the MXZ SAW a little slack using the MXZ SAW.
There are couple of reasons for this post, but mostly, I was just sitting here thinking how awesome I am. I just realized, while I was reading about the evolution of bird genomes from dinosaur genomes on MSNBC.com or some other news site, that I am actually a fairly awesome guy. I suppose the real test here will be how long it takes GSTDOG to find this post and ridicule it for it's clear message of, how shall I put it, YOJAY-AWESOMENESS. For those of you who don't know, and judging by the comments, that would be everyone and no one, GSTDOG used to be a regular contributor to this blog until he lost interest in posting relevant or interesting content a few months ago. In fact, I think it's safe to say we may have seen the last GSTDOG post on this blog...maybe...ever. Some say: it was time.
I'm not sure exactly what happened. Perhaps he found religion. Perhaps his new fiance doesn't give him permission to post anymore. Maybe he just became a huge pussy. No matter what the reason, I'm still required to plan and execute his bachelor party sometime in April. Who knows what that will entail? That's not rhetorical...I need some help here. I'm sure at this point he's not allowed to look at pretty ladies, so his single friends will all enjoy a long night of poker and a long day of deep-sea fishing as we send him off to a future void of the things he used to love..like blogging.
You kids out there may think this sounds harsh, and saying it sounds harsh may sound like a cliche, but there are times in life when we all come to a crossroads. You may want to travel both paths, but you can't. At least not at the same time. You can always go down the road and come back, but who has time for that shit. Pick a road and go. Or just hang out at the crossroads and watch everyone else choose for a while. In the long run, no one cares but you. Just do what you need to do to be happy, or on top, or successful, or laid. Whatever you want. When time is up on this insignificant marble, it's just between you and your body. Eventually, however it happens, you'll exhale one last time and the inhale won't come. Will you have spent your days fighting mortgage companies, banks, bill collectors, and neighborhood review boards, or will you have spent your time exploring the purpose of any of it?
My guess is mortgages and that like, since those are the challenges presented to us in our lifetime. We fight the fights we need to fight. The rare person rises above the mundane and does something truly outstanding. Chances are, you're not that guy.
But I might be.
For the record, I was not looking for porn when I discovered this article about suing telemarketers. It looks like I may be up for this. He makes it sound so easy.
"It's been growing in popularity"? I love the idea that suing people is popular.Suing telemarketers is not new, but Web-based court forms have made it much easier. Electronic filing is slowly becoming standard at small claims courts across the country, said Emily Doskow, editor of "Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court.”
"It's very consumer friendly," she said. "It's been growing in
popularity for the last five years."
"Most of us are all too familiar with the common situation where, in ordering and eating a pizza, the size of the pieces contrast drastically in size. When this occurs, the large pieces are difficult to handle, often resulting in dropped sauce and toppings that can stain clothing and carpet. Furthermore, due to the fact that pizza is often hot, burns can result where the hot cheese, sauce and toppings drop onto one's person. Also, where the pizza serves as a meal for a number of people, the disproportionate pieces make for unequal servings and, as a result, further cutting is required to even-out the meal. From a business point of view, a poorly cut pizza relates directly to quality and workmanship in the food product. Accordingly, there is need for a means by which commercial pizza establishments and restaurants can ensure constant, evenly sliced pizzas on a consistent basis. The development of the present invention fulfills this need."
You know what? This guy's right. I can't stand it when I have to shave an 1/8th of an inch off of a slice of pizza in the name of equity. Oh sure, ignore it, you say! Well, that's the kind of talk I would expect from someone a few irregular stains on their carpet. More than one pizza chain has lost my business when slices failed to fall within my pre-subscribed pizza tolerance of 342 ± 2 millimeters.
Thank God for visionaries like Kenneth Morris. In 1999, he give us the holy grail of pizza making, the even-slice pizza cutter (U.S. Patent No. 6,557,260). From ancient steel first created in the wind furnaces of Sri Lanka in 300 B.C., to the rise of modern steel production in 1850, all of mankind's progress has led to the creation of such a glorious tool:
While this news caused a great deal of joy among the pizza eating community in 1999, shares of Procter & Gamble and Reckitt Benckiser were sent crashing on the New York and London Stock Exchanges, respectively. Private shareholders incited a near panic as the rid themselves of what was sure to become "junk" stocks as the need for personal cleaning products vanished.
What? You saw this coming? Rubbish. Who could have predicted that the invention of the multiple pizza slice cutter in 1991 would have been a precursor to the even slice cutter of 1999. Sure, one could claim that these two inventions were really the same thing, but I think Mr. Morris ends that controversy.
"Patent No. D316,656 describes the ornamental design for a multiple slice pizza cutter." 
So much for Shadow Puppet theater. What can I say about this guy? These pictures are amazing. Guido Daniele takes making hand animals to a whole new level. There's not a whole lot left to the imagination about the animals here, and there's not much to say, except check them out. I could cut and paste the Reader's Digest article about him and these creations, but it's easier to just follow the link.
I'm sure I'll catch some flak from gstdog for the lack of a souvenir tie-in, and for a bit of a miss on an original angle here, but I can defend this post. First, I'm not even sure that gstdog even reads this blog anymore, judging by the fact that I haven't seen a post from him since about, oh, 1997. Secondly, if I wait any longer for gstdog to post his next fascinating insight into evenly sliced pizza or overzealous beer pong players, this blog will become even less relevant than it already is. So I thank you, loyal reader (you know who you are) for your patience in our content drought. I hope you find this exposure to a talented and original artist worthwhile, and maybe we'll see you again soon.
Enjoy.
For the record, I was not looking for porn when I discovered this awesome picture of the Earth.
Carl Sagan said it best when describing this life-altering photo of Earth, in his book Pale Blue Dot, taken by Voyager 17 years ago:
"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
.
.
.
"
Scientists have thought about attaching nuclear, thermal-rocket engines to ammonia-heavy asteroids and redirecting the asteroids so that they crash into Mars and release the meteor's ammonia and water. The ammonia could raise Mars' greenhouse gas level. The rocket engines could be able to move the asteroids 3 miles per second, for a period of ten years, before they shut down and allowed the asteroids to coast into Mars.
Christmas is just around the corner, so I decided to check out the hot toys this season for our loyal readers. I stumbled across a stock of 15 TMX Elmo's, and you can read the previous article to see yojay's master plan to make a profit of $10 a box. Anyway, after deciding that an extra $50 wasn't worth my time, I went online to find another toy. The front page of Toysrus.com is pushing robots and life-size ponies, but I had to dig a little deeper to find this gem:
Two things bother me about this ad. First, why are they using a hairy man-hands when this is obviously for a little girl? I guess this is setting expectations for dad. This toy will not inspire your daughter to go out and get a job, but rather, she will beg you to insert money into the machine for her.
The second problem is a little more subtle. Check out the print ad:
The Ultimate ATM machine - it's just like the real thing. The big screen welcomes you and will give you all of your up to date account information. This ATM is so advanced, it even knows your name.
A Pink ATM Machine. A Pink Automated Teller Machine Machine. I've always wanted a Pink ATMM.
Okay, so we've all been there. We've had that moment where you say something that is grammatically incorrect. In fact, I'm sure my gracious host yojay is scanning my post right now looking for my own mistakes (f*** you yojay). But as a society, we don't have a good measure of how fucked up one mistake is versus another. No fear America! Gstdog is here to solve the problem. Here is my patented Two-Dimensional Grammar Faux Pas Matrix (okay, maybe itsn't not patented yet, but I'm working on it....or not).
The HOW STUPID ARE YOU? Scale:
So how does this work? If I misuse an adverb in this blog post, yojay will give me shit about being a dimwit for a month. If President Bush can't even construct a proper sentence on television, he'll be a dumbass for a decade (trust me, it wears off--nobody cares about Dan Quayle anymore). If you use redundant phrases in a national print ad for a toy, then you are a mental defective for the rest of your life.
How can a reputable company let something like this happen? Don't they pay someone to read this shit? Toys 'r' Us lists the manufacturer as Summit Products. Let's check them out:
Uh....no. Trust me on this one--I clicked on commerical products and didn't find any Pink ATM Machines. Okay, maybe the 'I feel lucky' button on Google isn't the right choice for this search.
Ah, now we've got it--Summit Toys. And to confirm, this wasn't a Toys 'r' Us error--Summit lists all of their ATM Machines as such. A quick check around to see if any of them have PIN Numbers, but no luck. Wait! They have an ATMM? Do they recognize their own idiocy? Damn...it's just an Automated Teller Machine Mini Machine.
But, alas, the stupidity doesn't stop there. Our good friends over at ATMmachines.com are in their "ninth year of selling ATM machines." Good for them--nothing like nine years of uninterrupted stupidity.
 ATM Machine | |
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So, yesterday I came across an entire pallet of these things and thought "Aren't they hard to find?" My cohort agreed but we thought some research was in order. After noticing the secondary market value was about the same as retail, we concluded it would be a lot of work for little reward. However, it seems that in the last day, prices have starting creeping up as more and more auctions are ending and supply is dwindling. A quick check on eBay shows 4-5 auctions ending EVERY minute as of the time of this post. These auctions will dwindle over the next week, with the last second buyers growing increasingly desperate. Online businesses aren't helping much either when they have prices in $100 range or greater.
TMX Elmo bid timeline (final morning)
As you can see by the graph, there was minimal activity in my resprentative auction until the final 5 minutes, when the high bid increased 200%, from $15.00 to $45.00.
Click the picture above to see an animation of the final auction moments.
This clearly shows me that there is demand for these toys, and money to be made on the secondary market, especially when you factor in the inflated shipping charges some sellers have included.
Of course, some people are aiming higher than others, with BUY IT NOW prices of $300 for 2.
So I was looking for some wiring for my display lights in my storage bins and came across my MERLIN electronic toy from 1978. Parker Brothers made this cool handheld game and it was one of my favorite toys. I even still have the orginal box, although it's barely square anymore. I believe they have redesigned and re-released this classic game, along with some other great original handhelds of my childhood.
The last one, Mindbender, is an electronic version of the old code breaking game, Mastermind.
There's even been a Virtual MERLIN project that, despite website appearances, seems to be mostly completed.
So why do we care here? Because there's something to be said for mastering this game. It is a great exercise in efficient code breaking. Below are the results of my first recording of a 9 digit Mindbender game. It makes me wonder, what is the best way to solve these? Is there a secret? Any mathematicians out there have an equation to prove it can be done in says..10 steps everytime? Stay tuned...I may try to figure this out.
In the meantime:
UPDATE: I pulled another sample. After putzing around for 24 rounds, I buckled down and realized that I MUST have enough information by now. I did, but it took some digging to see it. I highlighted in pink the hits and in red the misses. Going back over the history like this, the code slowly revealed itself. It's like a really primitive version of Minesweeper. Now, to improve the process.
For the record, I was not looking for porn when I noticed these birds.
(This article is cross-posted at fdcceo.blogspot.com). 
Pixar's Cars came out on DVD last week. What a treat. Another Pixar hit, yada, yada, yada. We can read all the press releases all over the place. Let's get to the good stuff. Sure, you can probably read everything I'm about to write somewhere else by now too, but I've got a little something different in mind for the packaging.
Let's breakdown the inside jokes in this masterpiece, one at a time. Upcoming articles will showcase the cars and their backgrounds, as well as side by side comparisons to their real life counterparts/inspirations, but today we're going to start small.
Keep in mind, I have no sympathy for you if you haven't seen the flick yet. There will be spoilers for sure, so go buy it now and watch it. I'll wait . . . . . . . . . . . Pretty good, eh? Some crazy good talent was used on this film.
Yet, I digress. So we find Lightning McQueen on his way to California for the big race around the 17:44 mark in the film. Pause it. If you timed it right you should be looking at this:
If you are a Pixar fan and you have seen their animated shorts, this will look familiar.
These are the same pompous birds from the Academy Award winning short, For the Birds, part of which you can watch here.
Pixar does this a LOT, and we're going to track down as many as we can. They drop references to their past work in their current work, and it makes the films that much more fun to watch, over and over again.
Stay tuned. I'll be back with more detailed illustrations of the secrets of Pixar's Cars soon.
For the record, I was not looking for porn when I wrote this article.
How long should writing an article take? I'm not getting paid by the hour, so I suppose my effort to reward ratio is my own problem. I'd like to construct a well written article to hold your interest in less than 5 minutes, but that probably won't be worth reading. And can I sit here writing about the blog and this self-referential post and get much further? Not really.
When it comes to web traffic, content is king. If you have something worth reading, seeing or downloading, surfers will come. Hell, if you just write about increasing web traffic or creating something worth seeing or downloading, they will come. At some point, web masters need to leave the revenue generation behind and just focus on some original content. Of course, the internet has been practically custom built for intellectual theft, so be prepared to see your hard work being delivered from another site, paying someone else's bills. If it's posted, then it can be duplicated and reposted somewhere else. Sure, that's technically illegal, but it's down right near impossible to police, unless you're Disney or Microsoft or some other conglomerate with a team of lawyers protecting your assets.
So what's the deal here, you wonder? Why am I still writing and why are you still reading? Short version, we're both waiting for something interesting to happen. Where's the wisdom in my post? Where's the hidden web gem idea that you can beg for/borrow or, hell, it's the internet, just plain steal? Is there inspiration here to quit your job and develop your own revenue stream, one that works 24/7, even when you're sleeping? That would be nice, for sure, but I haven't written that part yet.
What about "Doing What You Love And The Money Will Follow"? I've always wondered what else needs to be in a book with a title like that? Maybe "Charge money for this service or talent that you love" or "Start a business around your passion to generate revenue". That gets us to page one. Now what? There are 6 billion people in the world, 300 million in the U.S. now. Aside from the 10 other people in my department, no one else does what I do for money. Sure, there are similar jobs, and mine has provided some unique work opportunities that "owning a website" will never provide, but at what cost?
Working for yourself is probably very liberating and empowering, but unless you plan to get into the cruise ship business or the skyscraper business on your own, sometimes working for "the man" is the only way to gain access to the things you truly love (if you love building cruise ships or skyscrapers). Unrealistically you could argue, "I'll just found my own renowned architecture firm and do what I love". Go for it. Good for you. But for some it's much easier to join up with the establishment and hit the ground running on the details you love, not the details of the business. I don't know many architects who enjoy managing payrolls or employee health coverage.
The pitfall is that a newly founded business will always grow into an established business. Internet startups eventually need to hire MBA's. In the beginning, Microsoft was 2 guys in a garage, but do you think they have grown-up corporate problems now, with thousands of cubicle dwelling employees? You betcha. Easy answer - get out before the kitten becomes a cat. Are you the one who can start 'em up, but can't send 'em to college? When they get older, pass them off to your sister and start another one. Travel light, jumping from one idea to the next, spawning kittens everywhere you go, because, let's face it, kittens are pretty damn cute. Yet, kittens grow up to be cats.
Problem is, if we remember where we're coming from, we hate cats.
Now, hypocrisy has a new friend...you. Even if you don't go global and your kitten stays cute, young and naive, like a Kansas girl at a Hollywood busstop, the cats will suppress their envy and either eat you up or buy you out.
Innocence is always lost, and those who lose it are on the prowl to take yours.
In the meantime, generate some original web content and drive traffic to your supplemental income website. But don't be discouraged when the only statcounter numbers you see are from your own publishing software. If you build it (and make it worth seeing/reading or downloading), they will eventually come.
To steal it.
For the record, I was not looking for porn when I discovered this AWESOME picture.
And now my blog has come full circle.
For the record, I was not looking for anything when I discovered this photomosaic generator.
Making pictures out of pictures finally comes to the layman. Although you can't choose your own picture collection to use as building blocks, or even theme the pictures used in the mosaic, it's still pretty cool for the cost. I mean, who doesn't want to look at the Olsen twins in all their blurry glory?
Upload your own source picture and have some downloadable fun, like say, a giant lego sea serpent at Disney World.
Before
Yesterday's Hawtness
For the record, I was not looking for porn when I discovered this article. It was emailed to my Blackberry by CNN breaking News.
So Britney is back on the market. I don't want to dwell on this, but the CNN article linked me to this E! interview with K-Fed. I think the quote below sums it up:
Diaper Genie or Diaper Champ?
What's the difference? I don't know which one we have, all it says is ''Genie'' on top. You'd better believe it, if I've got a stinky diaper, I'm throwing it right in there.
