The new version of ForecastFox is totally sweet. It has a doppler radar and also displays severe weather alerts. These extensions just keep getting better and better.

This news certainly made my day. One of my favorite directors, Terry Gilliam, will soon be releasing two new movies after not releasing a new film since 1998's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Both The Brothers Grimm and Tideland will be released this year. Wow, two Tim Burton films and two Terry Gilliam films in 2005. Freakin' sweet.

NOOOller Coaster

Oh man, I just got a good laugh. See what happens when the Dark Lord takes a ride on a roller coaster.

Since Invision Powerboard is no longer offering free updates, we've made the switch to phpBB and things are working quite well. We're messing around with skins right now, so go pick your favorite. All existing usernames, avatars, and all that stuff are still there. There is also a new, working RSS feed, which can be auto discovered or fetched here. If you are on the blog team and don't have an account yet, I'd encourage you to sign up because Danny and I usually post news and updates in our secret blog team forum. Also, please make a note of the new URL. Enjoy!

Is anyone voting in the poll besides me? Is Chester of the Month still meaningful to brendoman.com? Put your thoughts here.

Before the Robots by Better Than Ezra

WuzzaDem: Pope Fiction (Scene From)

Vincent - Like they got a army and everything, but even though they're in Italy, it's called the Swiss Guard.

Jules - Did you say the Swiss Guard?

Vincent - Hey, I don't stutter.

Jules - Now, how come it ain't the Roman Guard?

Vincent - I don't know. Maybe it's got something to do with the metric system.

Jules - I don't know about that, but if I was in Rome and somebody told me the army was called the Swiss Guard, I'd ask some follow-up questions.

Vincent - Well, I ain't worried about it.

Jules - It ain't a matter of bein' worried about it, it's just a matter of makin' sense. See, there's a reason that countries all have different names. It's so people can tell where they are at any given time. Now, you go mixin' up armies or guards or whatever, then people are bound to get confused about where they are. Like, if I was to go to Poland, I damn sure wouldn't expect to see no German Guard there, you see what I'm saying?

Vincent - Maybe you would if you were there during World War II.

Jules - What's World War II got to do with anything?

Here is another one.

Well, my loooong journey through Jordan's Wheel of Time series continues! I can't really post many details about the plot since I know Josh is reading (I got him hooked) this book either right now or very soon. We sound like complete geeks to our spouses when we start talking about these books. Josh says he's starting to have thought processes in the vernacular of the books. Haha!

The Book A Minute summary is here, but it's pretty pathetic, although it's right about the necklines.

All I can say is that at the end of the book, the story is getting pretty detailed, and I'm wondering what it's going to be like by the time I get to book ten!

Having a fun time, but these books sure take a long time to get through. :) It's definitely an investment.

FlashTrek - Presented by Addicting Games

Star Trek flash game. It's pretty difficult to figure everything out, but once you get going it's pretty fun. A lot more than just your typical side scroller time waster flash game.

After I couldn't find this in the university library (surprise), I headed out to pick this up at a local bookstore. No luck on a hardback, so a freakish Johnny Depp cover will have to do. Since it was only 150 pages (with pictures)and I had nothing better to do, I read the whole thing as soon as I got home from Borders.

I haven't read this book since I took children's lit, and since I have Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Wilder) movie memorized, I needed to separate myself from it by reading the original again, so I could give Burton's movie a fair shot.

Now that I've read it again, I still maintain that the movie I love is a great adaptation of the book. I think it really catches the spirit of the book well. But hey, since it's such a creative book, I suppose it leaves room for interpretation, and Burton's might work as well.

The only major differences between the original movie and the book are that the other four children all bring both their moms and dads to the factory, Veruca Salt is dumped in the garbage by a bunch of nut-shelling squirrels instead of chocolate-egg-laying geese, and Mike Teavee actually gets to the Chocolate Television by choosing a button for it in the glass elevator.

The original movie adds these significant changes: the more detailed Slugworth subplot, Hsawaknow (Wonka Wash spelled backwards), Charlie and Grandpa Joe's fizzy lifting drink excursion. Oh yes, and the Oompa Loompas are actually supposed to be slightly Garden of Eden-esque: naked save for leaves or furs.

As for an actual review of the book:
It made me hungry. And I liked it.

(OFFLINE) Board Offline
Good luck with the new board Brendan. I am looking forward to using it.

Chewbacca wears the ultimate Man-Bag at Purseuing I don't know what is more scary:

1. Facing down Chewy and his man-bag
2. Knowing there is a blog about purses

Akbar: Digg

kittenwar.com

May the best little cat that people think are cute to the point of submitting it to an online cutest cat competition win.

Although, the idea of using kittens in war does sound appealing:

[Terrorist bent on imposing his religious dogma on the rest of the world is shooting a gun.]

[Cute little (lifelike robotic kitten) approaches...]

Terrorist: Ah, look, it is a cutesy wootsy little kitten...

[picks up kitten, who, unknown to the terrorist, is willed with C4 or other blowing up type stuff.]

BOOM.

DRM Goes From Soft Suck to Blow Hard Talks about Sony and Intel's new hardware DRM enforcement.

The purpose of technology is to make our lives better, to make the tasks that are tedious pass more quickly, the difficult tasks a little easier, and the beautiful experiences more vibrant and believable. If you stand back and look at the laylines of the tech world, you can see more than just the buzzwords of proprietary technology. You see convergence, interoperability, and ease-of-use as real-world desires of a tech-hungry populace. But digital rights management, whether its the software running your iPod or the chipset running your Windows media station, is a stumbling block that halts all the progress that technology has made to improve our experiences and breaks it up into little bits so that you pay more for less.

Assuming that I'll receive calls from irate students periodically in my career, I thought I'd start up a new category, to be blessed with the wisdom of things people say when they're angry. Names will remain anonymous, of course.

I now give you the first installment in this new category:

(Regarding being charged a late registration fee...)

Student: "Just because a rule exists for all students doesn't make it right. So what are you saying, abortion is right because it's legal?!"

Me: "Excuse me, are you saying that charging a $45 late fee is tantamount to killing a human being?"

Turner, an outspoken media mogul who started CNN in 1980 but no longer controls the network, said he envisioned CNN as a place where rapes and murders that dominated local news wouldn't be emphasized, but he's seeing too much of that "trivial news" on the network he created, now second in ratings to Fox News Channel.

"I would like to see us to return to a little more international coverage on the domestic feed and a little more environmental coverage, and, maybe, maybe a little less of the pervert of the day," he said in a speech to CNN employees outside the old Atlanta mansion where the network first aired.

"You know, we have a lot of perverts on today, and I know that, but is that really news? I mean, come on. I guess you've got to cover Michael Jackson, but not three stories about perversion that we do every day as well."

His remarks won applause and laughter from CNN employees, but the moderator for Turner's remarks, CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour, said: "But everyone else is doing that. Why do you think it's important not to?"

Turner replied: "Somebody's got to be a serious news person. Somebody's got to be the most respected name in television news, and I wanted that position for CNN.

Turner: CNN Focuses Too Much on Perverts

Akbar: Drudge

Reason like, #452 that I don't watch any tv news. Tell us stuff that really matters, we are not all white trash.

Here are the photos from the 1989 sound seeing tour.

The discovered time capsule

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Number 4

Number 5

Number 6

Number 7

Number 8

Number 9

Number 10

Number 11

Number 12

Number 13

Number 14

Number 15

Number 16

I just realized I haven't posted the links to the last 2 podcasts so here they are.

Found this on Common Grounds Online and thought it was funny. (Here's part 2) My favorite:

If you see a Gold’s Gym t-shirt and then think that a “God’s Gym” t-shirt would be really cool…you might be an evangelical.

There were a couple I didn't get (what IS a DTR?) so I must not be an evangelical. I'm trying to think of my own additions to the list but I'm not that clever yet today. Anyone?

So much for that wonderful DirecTV HD service Mike had. Yesterday we returned the HD DVR with Tivo after only having it for two days. There were two main reasons. The first was that we found out DirecTV will soon be stopping their support of Tivo. Yeah, you will still be able to use Tivo, but DirecTV won't be offering upgrades to their DVR boxes. This means Mike had a Tivo that wouldn't get the promised wireless networking upgrades or anything like that now that DirecTV is launching their own DVR service. The big strike though was the announcement of the Sunday Ticket "Super Fan" package. DirecTV is charging customers an additional $100 for HD Sunday Ticket in addition to the $219 they are already paying for Sunday Ticket. This is just insane, especially since Mike used to pay less than $100 for Sunday Ticket. So a lot of people are ticked off, including Mike, who cancelled his HD and Sunday Ticket service. Read on for the full article about the wonderful "SuperFan" package.

Read more »