Thursday, January 22, 2009

Some Funky Syncopation!

It's no secret that I love cartoons. Always have. Always will.
From when I was a kid waking up early on Saturday mornings to watch Superfriends to, well, this morning watching Phineas and Ferb with my youngest.
There was a time when I stopped watching them though. During my teen years and into my twenties, cartoons were TERRIBLE. At some point, the producers of the shows were allowed to change the way they marketed items to kids during cartoon times and from then on, the money for cartoons was put into that...marketing. Not the content of the 'toons, but the commercials and products surrounding them.
So the early stuff was 'good'. The middle stuff...not so good.
What's making (some) cartoons good again is competition! Between the Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, Nic-toons and a few others, there are boatloads of cartoons options out there, so cartoons are getting more and more clever.
Phineas and Ferb are currently my favorite...mostly because I find them clever.
Here is a clip from one of my favorite episodes called: Dude, Were Getting The Band Back Together which is a slight send up of the Blues Brothers.
Enjoy. **Updated with a working link

Politicians Are The New Ninjas...

Ok,so first Pirates where the new Ninjas. Then Zombies were the new Pirates. Now, Politicians are the new Zombies. So by the Transitive Postulate of Equality*: Politicians are the new Ninjas! Whew! WE'RE SAVED!



*Ninjas = Pirates. Pirates = Zombies. Zombies = Politicians. Ninjas = Politicians! Ta Da!

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

You Should've Seen It In 2.4 megapixels!

I saw this picture at Kate Heffernan's site today:
I'm not really sure why I think it's awesome, but I do.



For those of you who don't see what the big deal is...realize that all those kids are holding up the cell phone camera's to take a picture of the moment.

The other day, Matthew and I were listening to a song called "In Color". We talked about how that song demonstrates a HUGE difference between his life, and that of his grandfathers.
The song talks of pictures taken during the Great Depression, WWII and so forth and how they were, obviously, in black and white (or sepia :)
Today's children won't really have a concept of true B&W photos...just ones that are that way for effect. Heck, all the pictures of my life are in color. But you still have to get off my lawn!
The digital age and the ubiquity of digital cameras are going to change the way our kids remember their own unique history.
It's going to be interesting if they remember like their parents and grandparents: The snow was always whiter (and deeper), grass was always greener, politicians were honest, gas was cheap and the sky was clear.

Or, maybe they'll remember with a bit more clarity: Some winters we have lots of snow, some we don't. But we ALWAYS remember the snowy ones better. The grass was greener cause my parents took better care of their lawn than I do, so it's time to grow up and fertilize! Politicians were NEVER honest. We've ALWAYS complained about the price of gas and a blue sky is still just as pretty, but we don't take the time to look at it anymore.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Note to the outgoing President

Thanks for keeping my family safe for the last 7 years.
It is appreciated.

KTHXBY,
Donnie

Thursday, January 15, 2009

DOH!

New Fav Site: www.icanhasforce.com
This is too funny...


but this is too funnier!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Epic Weather Fail



Where is global warming when you need it?

Monday, January 12, 2009

It's all a matter of leaverage....

From one of my favorite blogs, Photo basement comes this gem:

14,528

In terms of money, it's a good chunk.
In terms of miles driven...it's about a years worth.
It terms of minutes worked, it's about 6 weeks at 40 hours/week
In terms of text messages per month...it's not even believable.
However, this kid did it!
"First, I laughed. I thought, 'That's insane, that's impossible,' " the 45-year-old dad said. "And I immediately whipped out the calculator to see if it was humanly possible."


Stunning. Simply stunning.
This does NOT help my daughters case with wanting a cell phone.

**UPDATE**
According to this article, a Florida girl more than doubled this girls texting total...and the article even goes on to say that a man in India texted more than 135,000 times in one month....

I really should be working...part 1

I just 'happened' across this today at work.


Evolution of Dance (now Part 1) is a family favorite around our house. I'm fairly certain the boys haven't seen this yet, or else I would have seen it sooner.

Curse You The Internet!

I, like most I assume, have a love/hate relationship with the internet. This applies to many different facets of using the interwebs, from: loving the information to hating the time wasted, from enjoying the communications to saying to much, and so on.
One of the things I like about the net is the jargon, lexicon, web speak, etc.
One of the most prevalent parts of web speak is the contraction of entire sentences into letters.
The most well know of these is the ubiquitous Laugh Out Loud being contracted into lol.
For the most part, these are harmless little idiosyncrasies of daily life:
lol, rotf, ttfn, FTW, YTMND and the one that helps at work: NSFW. There are many more.

However, among these are the ones that tend to stick in my mind more readily. The ones that are not so harmless.
I remember when I was a kid. (Well, part of me still is!) I used to cuss. A lot.
No, you don't understand. A LOT!
I can still remember walking across the street with my buddy, Brian. We were heading to the Zebra Den arcade to blow some hard earned quarters, and just talking, and in them middle of the street he stopped me and told me that I swore too much. I was a bit taken aback. HE SWORE TOO! But apparently, I was over the top.
I'm pretty sure I learned it from my older brother, who, as the cliche's have it, was a sailor!
But I digress.
Among the net speak initials that get stuck in my head, are the ones that include curse words:
memes like: LMAO, RTFM (a fav), the ever popular STFU, the one the pops into my mind the most: WTF?!?! and the newest one I've read, RFN.
Don't look them up if you don't know them already!

Anyway, when I started hanging out with the girl who would eventually become the love of my life and finally would become my wife, I naturally didn't swear...I didn't even have to try to not swear. Something inside of me knew I shouldn't do it.
As I grew older, started going to church, working with Utes and having children, I had ever more reasons to not swear.
However, I do find my self, more often than I care to admit, repeating these in my mind when the situation arises:
"Matthew! I need that " RFN!
"Yes sir, I think I sent you that info in an email" RTFM!
"So you deleted everything in your email sir?" ROTFLMAO!
"That dude SO cute me off!" WTF!?!?!
And so on and so on.

I've been around cursing all my life. My folks swear, many of my friends swear. Cursing is like Santa Clause...it's everywhere! For the most part, I think I've been inoculated from this bane of original thought and expression.
However, I do have to constantly ward off the urge to use the 'net spoken abbreviations.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

37,569,187,200

Question: What's over thirty-seven billion kilometers long?
Answer: The earth's orbit since I was born.
To put that in perspective, Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot was just over 6 billion kilometers in distance from Earth!
E gads!
Oi vey!
Dear goodness!
Holy Middle Age Batman!
That's right...I turn 40 years old today. Foooorrrrrrtttttyyyy!
4 x 10.
That means my wife can trade me in on two twenty year olds. Don't tell her though...she may take you up on it!

Friday, January 09, 2009

Better than a poke in the eye too....

This is the latest post at my fav online comic: xkcd.com


It's funny how much passion tech people have both for and against technologies. Of course, in the case of Vista, hating it with the white hot passion of a thousand burning suns is completely justified!

Epic Cake

Wow. Just Wow.
This is a cake. And it's a dragon.

So, the question is: Is this a cake made to look like a dragon or is it a dragon, made of cake?
In any case, this is seriously over the edge cool.
To see the other pics in this photo stream, click HERE

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Epic Rush

This video shows, in a span of about 3 minutes, just how un-thrilling my life is...and the rub is, I didn't even know it!

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.
To paraphrase a Barbara Mandrell song, "If not jumping off cliffs to get your fix is wrong, I don't want to be right!"
You may have to read that a couple of times before you get my meaning....
Elbow.
And.
Send.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Perspective: 2009

If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pep pills,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you when, no fault of yours, things go wrong,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can ignore a friend’s limited education and never correct him,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor, If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, or politics,
Then, my Brother, you are as good as your dog.
– Author unknown