Month: December 2004

When I heard that Jon Stewart and The Daily Show writers had come out with the book America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide To Democracy Inaction, I had high hopes, and I was not disappointed. It’s a hilarious satirical look at American history and government written in the style of a high-school textbook. It is a bit sad that so much of the satirical content is not all that far from the truth, though…

I was very happy to hear that the book was named as “book of the year by Publishers Weekly, the trade publication of the book industry.” I wonder whether Wal-Mart will reconsider banning the book from its store shelves now (they still offer it online). On second thought, probably not. I guess showing all of the Supreme Court Justices nude was a bit much. If only I were making that up… 🙂

“As you type, Google [Suggest] will offer suggestions. Use the arrow keys to navigate the results.” This is pretty damn cool; here’s the FAQ.

According to Virgin Mobile, “What matters most is camera phones for $20 less.” I just don’t think they get the true spirit of Chrismahanukwanzakah… 😉

If you ignore the first couple of seconds, this Flash music video turning the Outkast song “Hey Ya” into a Hanukkah theme is pretty fun. Happy Hanukkah!

Check out this cool aerial view of lake effect snow clouds…

Have you ever had a hankering to play a favorite old game? I sure have (Go figure; I just rescued my Commodore 128 from my parents’ house, and it still works!), so when I found out a while ago that there are sites devoted to “Abandonware,” the preservation of old PC games and programs that are no longer distributed or supported, I was in heaven.

One of the best Abandonware sites that I’ve come across recently is Abandonia, in which you can download all kinds of classic games. Home Of The Underdogs used to be a great source as well, but it appears that they have for the most part succumbed to pressure from the game companies and often do not have the actual games available for download. The site is, however, a great source for the game manuals in a lot of cases, which can be very helpful. Finally, link sites like The Official Abandonware Ring, The Ultimate Oldgames Linkpage, and Abandon Ware are a good source for other sites that offer Abandonware downloads.

Now get searching; you might just find a long-lost favorite game!

“Man killed by ‘pet’ wildebeest.”

After reading this, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a line from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: “And if they told you wolverines would make good house pets, would you believe them?"  🙂

Check out Michael Paulus’ fascinating yet somewhat disturbing study of cartoon characters’ skeletal systems:

I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass.

Update: Waxy.org has been kind enough to mirror the images from the site, which appears to be getting bogged down from all of the hits it’s getting…

MozillaZine and Mozilla.org report that Thunderbird 1.0 has been released. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Thunderbird is Mozilla’s excellent stand-alone e-mail client. I switched from Eudora a long time ago, and I wouldn’t touch Micro$oft Outlook with a ten-foot pole. For a complete list of features or to download the new version, visit the official Thunderbird site. The release notes summarize some of the newer features if you’re interested…