Archive for November, 2009

Would you get upset if you were Re-gifted? Re-Gifting is taking a gift you were given and giving it to someone else. Sometimes a Re-Gift is also known as a “White Elephant“. This dates back to Southeast Asian monarchs.

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Rules for RE-Gifting

• RE-Gift only if you would want to receive the item – Unless meant as a joke.
• RE-Gift it outside your normal circles.
• Make sure you remember who gave you the gift so you don’t RE-Gift it back.
• Quality of a RE-Gift is important
• Remove all markings
• If asked, honesty is the best policy

There was a ture Urban Legend about brothers-in-law (Roy and Larry) who RE-Gifted Moleskin pants. They did it for 25 years, back and forth. Only difference is the idea around the wrapping. Creativity was the key. One year the pants were encased in a 1974 Gremlin. The packaging got more creative, but the game ended apbruptly in 1989 when the packaging – an elaborate glass sculpture – went awry and the pants were turned to ash.

I have purchased a few cool things from ThinkGeek. I had the marble roller coaster and I have definitely bought t-shirts from them. They have gone out of the box to make shirts that do more than just ‘be worn’.

The Electric guitar shirt, for example, let’s you play music. It’s simplistic in nature, but just like anything, if you put your mind to it, you will be able to create a masterpiece. Something that will make the world stop for a second.

O.K, maybe that’s a ways away. But for now, check out the Think Geek band playing “I Love Rock n Roll” using the shirt. There’s also a drum one. If you want to buy me a shirt, i am more native to that….

Transformer Learning Center

So today I went with my brother to Surplus With A Purpose (SWAP) - a surplus resale store. Government agencies, Universities and other companies contract with SWAP to pick up old equipment. Computers to office furniture. Cubical walls, office chairs, rolling carts, computers, monitors, and – Transformer Learning Centers.  It’s all here.

There were a lot of cool items this week, such as the Transformer Learning Center. It is a device for people to test and learn transformers and circuits. The H-TTC-PIL-1 was a common learning center for it’s time. It would be perfect for a movie set, or a tinkerer. At $35, it’s a steal.

Darkroom Door

If you are a photographer, you might know what this is. It’s a darkroom door. Simply put, it’s a revolving door to keep light out. That way you could move around without having to cover all your equipment if you had to walk out the door.

This item was also $35, but someone had already put a claim on it. He planned to put it on his son’s bedroom. What a cool idea – revolving door to the bedroom. Very Sci-Fi.

Centrifuge

Do you need a Centrifuge? Well for $25 you can get one here. Be able to separate those chemicals quick and easy.

I didn’t check the power specs on this thing. I can tell you it’s the size of a dryer. Therefore, it may have to live in your basement, but you will be able to work with the motion of circular (RCF).

Infant Ventalator

Got a child that needs to be ventilated? Well, for $75 you can get the Infant Ventilator. the IV-1008 will be great for children that need help in breathing.

While you may not want to hook up your kid to this, it would once again be a cool set device. You could add it to the basement pile of junk you don’t need. Then again, if that is the case, then just donate $75 to me and I’ll give you more cool ideas.

ph Meter

If you don’t have a lot of money, that’s O.K. How about getting yourself a ph meter? This device can tell you the ph levels of  your water, or your sweat.

The best part is it has older dials, so if you want to put it into a Star Trek parody, it will fit right in.

There were a lot more cool items at SWAP, but these items definitely showed promise. I didn’t get anything, just some computer equipment. But if I wanted to put together a cool lab, I know where to go to get pieces for it.

Scientists have shown off an effect not unlike that of the “phasers” in the show Star Trek – but- hold yer tricorder there, Trekfan! it only works on tiny worms called nematodes.

The worms were fed a molecule that, when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light, changes its shape. Then they exposed to UV light, and they exhibited paralysis.

When the worms were again exposed to visible light, they regained their ability to move.

So, no handheld phasers yet, but maybe someday…

Meanwhile, keep practicing that Vulcan neck pinch there, sport!

Related articles

• Star Trek tricorder jumble sale discovery (guardian.co.uk)
• R2-D2 Located in Star Trek 2009 (geeksaresexy.net)

The Water Closet. The can. The commode, head, john, latrine, lavatory, outhouse, potty, privy, powder room, throne. However you identify it, we pay homage today to the porcelain god.

Today is the 8th annual World Toilet day. Many organizations and countries, including the United Nations, endorse this day to the toilet.

The day was set up in 2001 to promote awareness. While you might think being aware of your commode is funny, in all reality, there is a lot of thought put into the “toilet of the future”.

I got to hear Dr. Michio Kaku a couple months back. He talked about what we might see in 50 years. While he really didn’t talk about the self-cleaning toilet, he did talk about how a toilet could determine if you might have cancer. It might be able to break down your fluids to let you know what you should eat today to balance yourself. It might even help in the aid of using the restroom….

..but that is the future. For now, give your throne a good cleaning. Throw in a new 3000 flushes. Change the magazines on top of the tank. Put in a box of Rid-X. Put the Toilet paper on the spool. For this is the toilets’ day.

Remember – if it wasn’t for advancement, we would just be using a tree…

I was on the Caffination Backchannel when I saw this one. The best part about this movie trailer is that the foam rubber suits and limited movement of the mouths could make you believe the Turtles were actually passing the dialogue in the sound clip. Mix in a little Turtle fight scenes and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

Of course this is the 1990 movie that had Corey Feldman as the voice of Donatello. The movie, of course, is about how they came to be so they can battle the evil “Shredder”. Meanwhile, Reservoir Dogs is a 1992 movie about 7 strangers coming together to commit the “perfect” crime.

There is a six degrees of separation in this: both films were edited by Sally Menke.

In the wild, there also are dorks. Here is the proof.

One morning, A Viroqua WI man awoke to find his concrete Elk statue lying on the ground. He went outside to investigate, wondering what punk kid was able to knock over the heavy stone beast.

Then, the situation had become clear. A short distance away lie a dead Deer. The 180 pound animal, in the rut, decided to challenge the Elk statue for male dominance.

So, Dorks do exist in the wild, they just don’t live too long. I guess that is natural selection for ya!

So, I’m paging through a newspaper, and I see an ad for the website ‘Yoostar’. It looks interesting, so I checked it out.

On the front page, there is a great promotional video, showing you the magic. For about $165.00, you get a special edition ‘Short Circuit Number 5′ looking camera, remote and a green screen. You buy the camera from Yoostar, or Amazon.

Then, you register on their website. Now you are ready to insert yourself into their collection of movie clips. Sounds a bit like JibJab, eh? You can even widget your creation on Facebook, or other social network sites.

The promotional video shows a scene from ‘Blues Brothers’, first the original, then with a replacement in Dan Ackroyd’s role. It looked pretty good. There is also a clip from Terminator, with a woman replacing Linda Hamilton.

After the ad ended, I decided to look at some videos submitted by members. Now we see the true quality of this package. I watched a clip from ‘Ferris Beuller’s day off’, with the role of the principal’s secretary, Grace, being replaced. The sound change was noticeable and awful, the scene change could have been done at home with a computer program and duct tape. The other scenes I viewed went about the same.

So, for around $165.00, you can have a fun little toy, with support from the website, which promises to offer new content as time goes by. And, as long as said website remains alive, you will have a fun toy for the kids, or for parties, or to give your facebook friends a laugh.

Or, just make it yourself at home on your laptop, with programs you already have, and a webcam or digital camera.

The Haizhu Bridge in Guangzhou, China has been smeared with rich, creamy butter to stop suicides.

Chinese workers covered the giant steel bridge with butter because officials are fed up with traffic jams caused by people who slow down to watch suicide victims leaping to their death.

A Government spokesman said “We try employ guards at both ends but that not work. We put up big fences and tell people not to commit suicide here. So now we have put butter over the bridge and it work very well. Nobody can get up there and anybody who tries fall down”

Since we put up the butter there have been no problems with these attention seekers

In one month alone eight people committed suicide on the bridge and numerous others had climbed up threatening to commit suicide before changing their minds.

The bridge guard said: “Each time somebody threatens to commit suicide to get media attention or sympathy over personal problems we end up with several hours of tailbacks and there were lots of complaints. Since we put up the butter there have been no problems with these attention seekers.”

OK, so I created this for the 5 Tech Things you should know – but it was so dorky, I thought I would post it on it’s own. So for your viewing pleasure: The Geico Eyes Pilot.

Well this is interesting. Christopher Walken was on the BBC show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. During his segment, Walken pulled out another gem as he decided to recite the first verse of Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface”.

Props to Christopher Walken. He can make anything cooler. Now if we had some cowbell in that….

From the local paper – Flying Monkey punches man.

A man dressed as a flying monkey from “The Wizard of Oz” sent a Halloween reveler to the hospital in critical condition after allegedly punching the victim over change at a downtown bar.

Well of course this happened at Halloween during the local festivities, but it’s still hilarious to hear about how someone in a flying monkey suit thinks they can be an actual flying monkey. It was more about the theft of some change.

Have to admit, it’s creative. This dork was arrested, though.