John’s Crawlspace

I ended up going to see “The Hills Have Eyes II” on Sunday night. I wasn’t dying to see it or anything, my girlfriend and I just randomly ended up going. It was alright - If you enjoyed the first one, I’d be willing to bet you’d like this one as well. It was pretty gory, but if you’re into that sort of thing, then I’d say it’s worth checking out.

This is pretty interesting, it’s a list of people who are banned from appearing on Saturday Night Live, and the reasons why. The list contains both celebrities and bands. Did you know that Chevy Chase was not allowed on the show from 1985 until 1997?

I wrote about the “Most Dangerous Roads of the World” series on here before, it’s pretty interesting stuff. The newest installment, part 3, can be seen here, and if you haven’t seen them already, check out parts 1 and 2. There’s some other cool stuff on that page too - Check out these cool advertisements.

Can you imagine having a video projector on your cell phone? Apparently, that just may happen in the not-so-distant future. Read more here.

While on the topic of tech news… Can you imagine being able to connect to WiFi from over 60 miles away? Intel is working on just that. “Academics and researchers from the company’s labs have created a system that lets Wi-Fi signals, which ordinarily carry a few hundred feet, instead travel 100 kilometers, or more than 60 miles.” Read more on that here.

I did install Photoshop CS3 and I used it a little, but only to do work that I normally do in CS2, and I didn’t really mess with any of the new features. I can say that the new GUI looks nice though. But if you’re interested in what Adobe has added this time around, check out Adobe Photoshop CS3’s Top 5 Standout New Features.

Now that I have a 9-5 where I work at a desk, I drink lots of tea. I’m not sure why I do this, I don’t need it to stay awake or anything, but I’d rather drink tea over water. Most people seem to drink coffee, but I’ve never been a big fan of that anyway and since it’s not all that healthy to be drinking 5 cups a day of it, there’s no reason for me to start now. Anyway, I’ve been buying all different kinds of teas, but I haven’t seen anything like this. It’s a pretty cool design, or whatever you want to call it, but at 10 bucks for 14 tea bags, I doubt I’ll be trying it anytime soon. I think my favorite design that I actually have seen is Lipton’s line of pyramid teas. I also just realized that I don’t think I’ve ever written about something as boring as tea before. Has the site hit a new low? You tell me.

I’m going to see Down at The Electric Factory on Sunday. i’m pretty damn excited for that. Down is one of my favorite bands - I saw them at The Trocadero a few years ago and it was one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen. I’ll let you know how it was. I haven’t been posting much because I moved into a friends place over the weekend, and I’m in the process of finding my own place. Have a good weekend everybody - we’re halfway there! Eat it.

I forgot to mention this in my last post - My friend Cortney lives in Jersey, and she was home for Spring Break so instead of driving the entire way home and then the whole way back to work again the next morning, I just crashed at her place and saved some gas. We just hung out and drank there, nothing crazy or anything, but I guess my body just isn’t used to drinking anymore… I felt so awful the next morning driving to work, plus I only got like four hours of sleep. I ended up pulling into someones driveway and vom’ing up stomach acid. You know the kind of vomit I’m talking about. The kind that leaves that totally awesome taste in your mouth for the next half hour. Bile just has an overall nice taste to it. I’d say since I started working full time, I drink on an average of once a week, or two nights at the most - So my body is definitely enjoying the lack of punishment that it was so used to receiving from me, via alcohol, while I was still in college.

According to Hitwise, the US market share of Internet traffic to the top 20 social networking sites grew by 11.5 percent from January to February 2007, to account for 6.5 percent of all Internet traffic in February 2007. Perhaps unsurprisingly, MySpace is still the heavyweight in a market made up of featherweights, with an 80% share. Facebook is MySpace’s closest challenger with 10% of the market.

Full article here, though I doubt many of you care - I’m not sure I do, actually. I dunno about all of you, but I spend most of my free time on BlackPlanet.com - I’m HoneyBear66, so all you fly ladies should hit me up, if you feel so inclined.

I heart Lifehacker, it’s one of the sites I check more-or-less on a daily basis. There have definitely been things I’ve found on there that have made me much more productive. Anyway, they had an article on there yesterday about cool stuff you can do with your cell phone, definitely interesting: check it out.

I was checking out some blog entry titled “The Top 10 Most Anticipated Games of 2007“. I’m not into games nearly as much as I used to be, but some of these games still look awesome. I’m sure the Mario Galaxy (Wii) trailer isn’t new or anything, but if you haven’t already seen it, check it out - It looks awesome. I really want a Wii but haven’t been able to find one in a store yet, and I’m not sure I’d really have much time to play it anyway. Also worth checking out are the trailers for Metal Gear Solid 4 (I love every game in the series thus far), God of War 2, and Super Paper Mario.

JungleCrazy.com has “all the best Amazon deals in one place” - All of the items listed here are discounted at least 70%, so you’re bound to find some good deals.

I’ve always wanted a breathalyzer, all throughout college I meant to get one but never actually did. Now that I have a job and all that good stuff I don’t drink nearly as often (I really can’t), otherwise I’d probably buy one of these. Certainly not the most sophisticated piece of technology, but for $7.03 (with free shipping) it’s not a bad deal.

I’m “in the market”, so to speak, for a new iPod. I’m on my third one right now. My first one got stolen, the second one I placed on the roof of my car and then forgot about and drove off, and now this one has a short in it or something; any headphones I plug into it only play in one ear, which is incredibly aggravating. It’s worth mentioning that I haven’t paid for an iPod yet. I earned my first iPod from Gratis Internet - I’m sure most of you remember freeipods.com, and possibly this page that I made. After that iPod was stolen, I earned a second one from Flashipods4free.com. I’m not sure how this happened, but they sent me two of them - Not at the same time though, I got my iPod in the mail, and then about a month later they sent another one. I’d say I’m generally a pretty unlucky guy, so I’m not sure how or why that happened, but it was pretty cool regardless. Anyway, both of the sites that I’ve earned iPods from have been based on convincing others to join and complete offers. The one I’m working on earning a new one now from now is a different type of site. You have to earn points in order to get your iPod. You can get one of those tiny-ass new iPod shuffles, a new Nano, or one of the 30 GB 5th Gen iPods. I’d explain it in more detail here, but I don’t wanna bore those of you that aren’t interested. If you wanna know more about this site, and some very helpful tips to help you out, check out this thread on Slickdeals.net. I’ve been using this tracker that someone put together to keep track of my points, it’s definitely pretty cool. And you can get points for referrals too, so if you do decide to sign up, use this link! Come on, you knew that was coming. Anyway, this seems pretty easy, apparently it’s possible to earn enough points for an iPod shuffle without ever doing an offer that requires a credit card, by just filling out boring-ass surveys with tons of pop-ups and that type of stuff. Some of the offers require you to literally do nothing more than enter your email address. If you have some free time, I’d recommend checking it out. Even if you don’t feel like trying to complete any offers, the site has a daily drawing for a free ipod shuffle, and you get entries into the drawing just for looking at offers. Even if you think I’m a bastard who doesn’t deserve another iPod and you sign up without using my referral link, I’d still encourage you to check it out. Okay, I’m done, I swear.

This isn’t really the slightest bit iPod related, but typing about iPods reminded me of this for some reason. I got a new car about a month ago, a 2006 Dodge Stratus. I had a Neon before that, but I wrecked it. Anyway, I was sitting in my car the other day waiting to meet up with someone who was over two hours late (but that’s a whole different story) and I was messing with my radio. All of a sudden I heard Howard Stern’s voice. I know he’s only on satellite radio, so I was confused. Then I realized that the display on my deck said ‘SAT’ where it usually says either ‘AM/FM’ or ‘CD’. I have no idea how I neglected to realize that the car had Sirius pre-installed. The guy who I bought it from never mentioned it to me (you’d think that would be a somewhat major selling point… It would have been for me) but either way that’s pretty cool. So now my daily 1.5+ hour commute to and from work is a little bit more tolerable. That’s all for now.

There have been a few articles (or maybe just one) I’ve came across regarding Google Maps and how you can now zoom in much further than you used to be able to, but I more or less ignored them. This morning, though, I saw this - So I guess they weren’t kidding. Well shit.

Wow, this is such a good idea, yet I would have never thought of it. If you’re a suspect in a criminal case and are worried about being identified by a witness in court, just wear a paper bag with eye holes cut in it. Pure genius, right?

This is pretty interesting: “We all know what the world looks like. But a new series of extraordinary maps shows our planet in a very different light. Rather than defining each country by size, these computer-generated modified maps redraw the globe with each country’s size proportionate to its strengths, or weaknesses, in a whole series of categories.” Categories such as alcohol consumption, prevalence of HIV, war and death, military spending, and more. Peep dat shiz.

You know, it’s funny - Just the other day I was thinking about how those of us who depend solely on McDonalds for food, we aren’t being fed enough. It’s about damn time they started making bigger burgers. When you’re right, you’re right.

Wow… Check out Fox News at it’s very best.

John Popper, the frontman of Blues Traveler, was pulled over for doing 111 mph in Spokane, Washington. Officers smelled marijuana and after searching the vehicle they found “numerous hidden compartments. Inside those compartments were four rifles, nine handguns and a switchblade knife. They also found a Taser and night vision goggles.” Well now we all know what he’s been up to. Check out the full article here. Blues Traveler was at Bonnaroo last year but I didn’t see them since they were playing at the same time as someone else I wanted to see (it might have been Beck). I talked to people that did see them though, and they said that since he lost a whole lot of weight, his voice isn’t nearly as good as it used to be. I also checked out “The John Popper Project” that he did with DJ Logic, and unfortunately it sounded pretty awful… Oh well.

So what’s going on today in this wonderful country of ours? Let’s see… Oh - A bunch of undercover cops shot and killed an 88-year old woman after she shot at them when they were breaking down her door in a high crime neighborhood. They had a search warrant that stated an informant had purchased drugs there, but the informant has denied purchasing said drugs, and has said that he was told to lie about the matter. From CNN.com: “Neighbors and relatives said the raid had to have been a mistake. They said Johnston lived alone and was so afraid of crime in her neighborhood west of downtown Atlanta that she wouldn’t let neighbors who delivered groceries for her come into her home.” Read the rest of the article here.

I used to post offers for free stuff much more often than I do now. If you love getting free stuff, Absurdly Cool’s Freebie Finder should be the only site you need.

Oh yeah, and check out the deepest pool in the world. I’d probably drown in that thing somehow.

From the looks of this article, if you’re a hip-hop artist (or a racist with a big mouth) in New York, you’re out of luck.

I’ve been messing around with WP themes as you can probably see; sooner or later I’d like to actually create my own layout for the site (imagine that) but it’s not as straightforward when using WordPress as it would be if the page was just all HTML. So bear with me.

I thought that this video was pretty funny. Someone gets stabbed at a party - Star Wars style.

Children of Men was an awesome movie, but I’ve only seen it once, so I’m sure there are a lot of details that I missed. Apparently one of the things I didn’t fully catch onto when I saw it (though I did catch on to some of it) was the level of detail put into the advertisements and miscellaneous interfaces throughout the movie. To see what I’m talking about, check out this video.

Definitive Jux (an ‘indie’ hip-hop label) just released an album in conjunction with Adult Swim, and you can download the whole thing for free here. If you’re into this type of music it’s worth checkin’ out.

I seriously can’t believe that this was a real news report. It’s about the ‘emo’ trend and how it’s ’sweeping area schools’. They interview a police officer and it’s absolutely ridiculous, he says that you can recognize ‘an emo’ by the way they wear their hair: All black, and it covers half of their face - The reason they do this, he says, is to see only half of the world. That cop is definitely the authority on teenagers and their emotions. They go on to mention a “point system” where you can earn emo points by crying and cutting yourself. I actually had to watch it a second time to make sure I didn’t miss anything.