Happy New Year!

National Debt From 1940-Present

This is just the debt, not including the $$$ that falls within the balance of the national budget. It’ll be even worse next year with all these bailouts planned.

What exactly have we been spending all of our money on over the past 60+ years?

A YouTube Gem

This video is why I love YouTube. This is one of the strangest yet funniest things I have ever seen on YouTube … courtesy of Matheus Furtado.

The sad thing is, this kid is actually serious about this video.  At first I thought he was really playing the keyboards, but quickly realized that he was just making funny faces & lip syncing. Why was he even wearing the headeset and mic then? I think this would’ve been less creepy if he didn’t pretend to sing the girl part too.

Now here’s someone who can pull off the “solo” duet the right way. This video has a great twist @ the 1:01 mark.

Not only does this guy have a decent voice, but if you close your eyes, you would swear that there were two different people singing. It’s amazing how he can change his voice like that and sound identical to a girl. Very cool!

WoRLD of GOO

I rarely play games on my iMac.  I usually only play console games on the XBOX 360 & PS3.

That is until I recently discovered an awesome new game called World of Goo.

This game won the VGA for Best Independent Game last week and after playing it for a few minutes it’s easy to see why. This game is something special and is probably one of my favorite games of 2008.

It’s very easy to play. Small blobs of Goo, when put near one another, form rigid bonds. Connect enough of them together and you can build towers and bridges along which unconnected Goo can saunter.

The goal in the majority of levels is to see particular balls of Goo reach a pipe opening, into which they are satisfactorily sucked. There’s your raw concept. Now apply four hundred million gallons of imagination.

World of Goo also sports some of the best artwork and music that I’ve ever encountered in a video game. It has a very “Tim Burton” feel to it.  Put all that together and you have one of the best puzzle games ever created.

Abercrombie & Fitch Smell

Everybody knows that when you walk into an Abercrombie & Fitch store or buy something from there that it has a certain smell.

The last time I was in Abercrombie & Fitch, someone who worked there was walking around and spraying all of the clothes with something. I guessed that it was one of their colognes.

They told me that the smell is their cologne – A&F Fierce.  That exact smell though comes from many different factors like the mixture of the cologne, the new clothes, and the wood.

Also the cologne on clothes after it’s been sitting for a while will change compared to a freshly sprayed shirt.  I managed to get a picture of the spray bottles that they were using.

I kind of like the smell, but if I stay in an Abercrombie & Fitch for too long, I start to get a headache.

BTW … I’ll give you one guess what one of my Christmas presents from Sayra was.

Merry Christmas

A Christmas Story

There’s no better way to start off Christmas than this holiday classic, now celebrating its 25th anniversary. It’s so popular that TBS runs it for 24 hours straight starting @ 8pm tonight.

Millions of fans can recite its lines from memory. Some of my favorites are: “Fra-gee-lay. That must be Italian” “It’s a Major Award” “Sons of bitches! Bumpuses!” & “I can’t put my arms down!” There are some fans that are so passionate they actually visit the Christmas Story house.

I think there are two reasons for the movie’s enduring appeal. First, it perfectly evokes the experience of childhood. Today’s kids may not drink Ovaltine or wait for their decoder rings, but they still have to deal with bullies and they still wish for gifts their parents think are too dangerous.

But more than that, this is the perfect antidote to all those stories of Christmas perfection on one hand and dysfunction on the other. I love the way this family responds when everything goes wrong. They laugh. And you know that in the future, this Christmas is the one they will always remember.

Once Upon a Win

I’ve recently stumbled upon an awesome new website.  It’s from the same team as icanhascheeseburger and it’s called Once Upon a Win.

This website is basically like a stroll down memory lane for anyone who grew up during the 70’s and 80’s.

Some of the different posts cover topics from the past like the Rubik’s Cube, the Trapper Keeper (I actually had one), Pop Rocks, and the Big Wheel. The site is still less than a month old, but new topics are posted each day.

Every time I got to a new topic I would find myself saying, “I remember that!!!” It’s a lot of fun remembering the good ol’ days of you childhood when you could just play with your favorite toy, savor that candy you only got when you were good, or sit in front of the television watching cartoons.

Be sure to take a trip into the past and check out the site.  You’ll probably end up bookmarking it like I did.

SPEEDTEST.NET

I’ve been considering switching from Comcast cable & internet to Verizon FIOS. I’ve heard that the internet speeds over at FIOS are over 2x the speeds of Comcast.

I wanted to find out what the true speed of my internet connection with Comcast really is. The guys over @ OXM mentioned in last week’s podcast that you can go to speedtest.net to easily check your download & upload speeds.

Speedtest.net allows you to test the bandwidth between your PC and any of a huge number of test servers from around the globe.  The speedometer-like display shows your bandwidth during the test in an easy to read format.

It tests both upload and download bandwidth along with latency, providing a complete picture of your connection.  Test results are saved to allow you to compare results over time, helping to spot slowdowns and upgrades.

The results are that my connection (Comcast w/ Internet Boost) is faster than 97% of connections worldwide and 96% countrywide.

I ran the tests at different times of the day and from different servers across the east coast.  My fastest recorded DL speed was 19255 kb/s.  For home service, that’s blazing!!!  

Since FIOS isn’t even available in my neighborhood yet, I’ll be content sticking with Comcast for now.

The Price Is Right Perfect Bid

Amid a sea of controversy and conspiracy theories, somebody had a perfect bid on the “showcase showdown” portion of the The Price is Right earlier this week.

I don’t know what was more amazing …. the perfect bid or how host Drew Carey seemed to care less about it?  They really need to show him some videos of Bob or just replace him altogether.  He really sucks as the host and practically ruined the moment.

This has never happened in the 30 year history of the show. Here’s a clip of the winning moment.