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Geosense is a very cool online geography game in which you have to identify the locations of cities on a map of the world, Europe, or the United States. Bonuses are awarded for how quickly and accurately you identify the location, and you can play alone or against someone online. Right now it’s a little slow as it copes with high traffic, but it’s worth the wait. Look for “driko” and I’ll play ya… 🙂
Two simple words: Fried Pizza. Mmmm… 🙂
Regis Philben will fill in for Dick Clark’s perennial role as host of “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” because of a stroke that Clark recently suffered. Although initial reports had him recovering quickly enough to still host, Clark’s doctors have now advised him that he would not be well enough in time. Dick Clark has hosted “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” for 32 years; it will feel quite weird to ring in a New Year without him… 🙁
Each year the New York Times publishes its feature The Year In Ideas: A To Z. This year’s edition contains a bunch of fairly interesting items to peruse, from “Acoustic Keyboard Eavesdropping” to “You Don’t Need Superstars To Win.” I just wish you didn’t have to register (visit bugmenot or use the Firefox extension if you’re loath to do so) and that the page didn’t expire after a couple of weeks…
For those of you that haven’t heard of it, “TheOpenCD is a collection of high quality Free and Open Source Software. The programs run in Windows and cover the most common tasks such as word processing, presentations, e-mail, web browsing, web design, and image manipulation.” Slashdot reported on the recent release of TheOpenCD 2.0, which includes “old favorites like Mozilla [Suite], OpenOffice, AbiWord, Gimp in updated versions, but also has some noteable additions like Firefox, Thunderbird, Blender and Gaim.” This really is an excellent compilation of applications that just happen to be both open source and free; click here for a complete list of programs or here for a list of download mirrors.
Austrian doctors have concluded that Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin after running new tests late last week. As seen in the pictures below spanning several months, the illness has left extensive scarring and swelling on his face, and he also suffers from “a series of symptoms, including back pain, acute pancreatitis and nerve paralysis on the left side of his face.” Dr. Michael Zimpfer, the director of Vienna’s private Rudolfinerhaus clinic that ran the tests, said that “If Yushchenko’s disfigurement turns out to be chloracne – a type of adult acne caused by exposure to toxic chemicals – it could take a long time to clear… Sometimes it takes two to three years for people to heal.”
In another election news, “Ukraine’s Supreme Court voided the outcome of the November 21 presidential runoff election, which Yushchenko lost to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, following allegations of massive vote fraud. A rerun of the ballot is slated for December 26.” I’m very glad to hear this; I just hope that this time around the election will be run fairly and the will of the people is realized.
What’s that song? is a music quiz that uses the Amazon API to cull music samples of a chosen artist to produce multiple-choice “Name That Tune”-type quizzes. If you’re stuck for artists, you can choose from recently-played games. Very cool…
The 2005 Lunar Wheel Calendar is a really cool way to display the whole year. Although it’s hard to see in the image at right, it shows all 365 days at once and graphically superimposes the lunar cycles. Best of all, it’s distributed under a Creative Commons license that allows you to freely download and distribute the images. You can download the calendar as one huge file, separate JPGs, or even a PDF with the eight separate JPGs.
You’ve got to see this compilation video of Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson bashing Canada (links to page with embedded QuickTime video). If you want to get a feel for their moronic positions, I think Coulter’s quote “They’re lucky we let them be on the same continent as America” and Carlson’s quote “Without the United States Canada is essentially Honduras, but colder and less interesting” pretty well summarizes things. WTF?! I know that these kinds of incendiary quotes are nothing new for either of these babbling talking heads, but this still pisses me off.
No wonder Jon Stewart went on Tucker Carlson’s show and said, “You’re as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.” Oh, and I wonder whether there is any truth to the allegation that ManCoulter “Ann Coulter is actually a former drag queen from Key West named Pudenda Shenanigans.” See, I can say baseless incendiary things too… :-p
The Men’s Health Eye Chart is both informative and funny. You’ll see what I mean… 🙂
