Comic Name Here: I'm a Lazy Bastard!

Well, that about sums up my introduction. Not really much more to say about me than that, but I might as well try.

The first thing I say when presented with an idea or project is "How can I make that easier to do?" or sometimes when I'm really in the zone it comes out "Hrmph." Lazy, you'll find that particular motivation has left its fingerprints all over anything I do.

I consider myself to be a storyteller. I'd like to consider myself a writer but until I actually succeed in being paid for it I'm just a storyteller. I tell good stories. I just have a hard time making one into a complete book, movie, or what not. I could tell you a whole story over a nice pot of tea (or a bus ride) and you'd probably be entertained through most of it. It would help that I serve good tea, of course.

But stories told and stories written have very different needs that must be met, and there in lies the challenge... continued in a very long post at "Comic Name Here"

Test Your Luck at the Next Pot Luck

This has been around for a few years but it's been a while since it stumbled into my realm of thought. If you haven't a clue what to bring for all those office pot lucks that pop up around this time of year here's a way to guarantee your contribution is the most talked about.

"Kitty Litter Cake"

It's worth just googling the phrase kitty litter cake to see the pictures that people have taken. This was my favorite so it's the one I linked to. The one with the cat cringing in horror is also quite nice.

And please, PLEASE(!!!) remember that "NEW" is the key word for this particular recipe.

digg story

US Soldiers to get protein powered gum to replace toothbrushes

Ladies and Gentlemen meet your new Army,
uh, never mind the gills just look at that smile!

"The gum, developed by US Army researchers, contains a protein that attacks the bugs that cause plaque, which in turn can lead to gum infections and tooth decay. Soldiers can keep their mouths clean without toothpaste, brush and bathroom sink, its creators say."

From the Digg page, my favorite comment:

"Great, now as soon as the US military develops an office chair that doubles up as a toilet, we'll never have to leave our computers."
by doubledoh

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Synthetic Gills for Soldiers

The Army recently gave out a contract for research into "an advanced breathing apparatus that mimics the efficiency, simplicity, and durability of the gill-swim bladder found in fish could greatly improve human maneuverability and sustainability in both aquatic and high altitude settings"


Damn, that's messed up...

Where do I sign up?

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On the Effectiveness of Aluminum Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study

I know this was making the rounds yesterday and has probably hit all the big sites by now but if you missed it...

MIT study on the protective nature of aluminum foil helmets. Conclusion is they most likely AMPLIFY any mind control signals not protect the user as commonly assumed.

...you're missing out.

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Arrested Development Cancelled

A travesty to say the least.

"In a move that will likely spell the end of a TV show that critics love but never drew big audiences, the Fox network said on Friday it pulled offbeat comedy "Arrested Development" from its schedule for the rest of the month."


Although I have to say that if a show this good can't get better ratings than it's been getting it's cancellation is the least absurd thing to happen to it.


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Science has finally fixed the free throw distraction plan.

How to distract a player during a free throw.


I'm not much of a fan but this is cool. Get your hippie friends together!!!

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Bush sends staff back to ethics class

Bush is requiring his executive office staff to attend refresher courses on ethics and handling classified materials. Staff members with security clearances will attend mandatory sessions next week, and those without security clearances will attend mandatory sessions the following week.

Unfortunately the article doesn't cover who's ethics will be taught. The word ethics itself seems to imply that they will come out good people.

Hmmm, also no mention of him planning to join them, maybe it is a real ethics class.


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Hear Teller Speak

Teller, the usually silent half of the magician duo Penn and Teller, reviews "The Glorious Deception" by Jim Steinmeyer.

Come on, how could you pass this up.

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There's more than one way to beat a dead battery.

Getting out of a fix with just a few items that you would never really carry in your car has never been easier.

A fun read from a fun page that you'll find has lots of great do it yourself ideas.

I think I'll have to dig up some oldies but goodies for you.

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Get Firefox or AdSense

As the trained sleuth that you are you will no doubt notice that suddenly there are two new buttons in the column to the left.

One is for Google AdSense if you happen to desire unobtrusive contextual advertising on your own blog or web page. It is very easy to set up and to use. Don't expect to suddenly be rolling in it but the ads tend to be on topic (that is their main goal) so they don't annoy (that is my main goal).

The other is for Firefox with the Google Toolbar. I've been using Firefox since it was just a mutant offshoot of Mozilla. It is by far my favorite browser and I can recommend it with great gusto. I've been using the toolbar for a few weeks now and I really like the addition of a "Blog This" button. It makes it a bit easier to bring nifty stuff here. It also has the PageRank listing so you can see how a page is ranked in Google. It helps when trying to grow your site out of oblivion to find pages that are ranked higher than yours to link to or from. Plus it's just fun to check your pages rank against the bugger that just kicked you butt on Blog Explosion's Battle of the Blogs. Try it! TRY IT!

Military Use for Silly String!

Soldiers are using Silly String to detect boobie traps in Iraq.

Gotta' love it.

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Jack the Ripper's Identity Under the Microscope Again

With the wonder of modern science we may soon know who Jack the Ripper really was!



Please don't be related to me. Please don't be related to me.

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What's Special About Your Favorite Number?

Lots of interesting mathematical facts about numbers.

I didn't bother reading them all but some were rather funny. If you find a gem, share it!

Mine is the largest number divisible by all numbers less than its square root.

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Brothers fined for keeping pet ghost

A village council in eastern India has fined two brothers for keeping a pet ghost.

An exorcist summoned by villagers claimed the brothers' pet ghost was "responsible for a recent outbreak of disease in the locality".

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I can only be thankful that this was not in my own town, thought it would not have surprised me.

And I pray that this is a hoax.
Happy Halloween everyone!

NASA: "Einstein Is a Space Alien!"

NASA has published an article disscusing the possibility of Einstein being a space alien.

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OK they actually say the opposite but an interesting read none the less.

The New Yorker reveals fake word in Dictionary

Even dictionaries employ DRM now. The New Yorker reveals the fake word placed in the New Oxford American Dictionary to monitor the illegal copying of their word base.

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Proof Kurt Cobain Was Murdered

A extremely comprehensive website by Tom Grant, the man who investigated the 'suicide' and interviewed Courtney Love and Cobain's friends and family. Seems like quite a bit of evidence supporting his murder to me.

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Could science defeat hurricanes?

Several approaches to attacking hurricanes are discussed in this article.

The most promising being dumping Dyn-O-Gel (which absorbs 1500x its weight in water and dissolves in saltwater) on a section of the hurricane eye wall and knocking it down a full category level.

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Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Digitally-Addictive.Com

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You Know You've Been to the Store Too Many Times When...

A funny thing for: October 18th, 2005

Technically this was from a week or so ago but it was funnier than anything that happened today so I'll bend the rules that don't exist.

I had a dream that I was watching TV and on it was some sort of sketch comedy show like Saturday Night Live. On the show they were doing a talk show starring Joan Rivers being played by Brittany Spears, but not very well. She wasn't doing an annoying voice or acting rude so I don't know how I knew she was playing her. The show's theme had something to do with confessions of celebrities and the guest changed a few times while the skit was going on. It started with Samuel L. Jackson, went through a few jobbers like Jimmy Fallon and wound up being Tommy Lee. There were some sexual questions or such but that's not important. I guess this was a trial run in dreamland since a little later in the night the show came back for more.

This time the guest was Jimmy Fallon but he was apparently supposed to be playing Justin Timberlake. The audience was very upset since they had been advertising that he was going to be there that night and most of them were fans that came hoping for a reunion. Jimmy's impersonation was about as good as Brittany's and interrupted with many giggles from him to a joke that only he could hear. The audience was very upset and refused to laugh at anything and began to start throwing things bringing the skit to an end.

* Please realize that I understand that I have not arrived at a funny part yet. Bear with me just a little longer. *

Later in the show they started the skit back up and the audience was quite vocal in their dissapproval until the guest was brought out and it actually was Justin Timberlake. I'm pretty sure the questions that were being asked were funny but I only remember one, the last one.

Brittany looked at the teleprompter and with a pained look on her face said, "What was Brittany's..." She looked to the side of the stage and a very mean looking producer gave her the slit throat and go on gestures. "favorite... sexual... position?"

Justin's quick response "Fetal."

The audience burst into laughter. Meanwhile Brittany was visibly embarrassed and even went so far as to do one of those Dave Letterman pulling on the tie gestures while saying "Yeah, I'm kind of thinking about taking that position right now."

I woke up at this point laughing since I had no idea where "Fetal" came from. I can only guess it was the result of the insane overexposure of magazine covers proclaiming how fat she was in her pregant state and of course the whole having a baby thing. I think there were some comments made about her being a sex fiend while pregnant as well so maybe I do know where it came from.

The thing is, none of these people even belong in my dreams, well most of these people and the other had no right being fully clothed. My apologies, to the father of her child, for not registering a mention in the dream or his name here. But really...

A Battle of Wits Over A Bottle of White-Out™

A Funny Thing for: October 17th, 2005

Today's funny thing for the day comes from my girlfriend.

A co-worker began to rifle through her desk in search of some White Out™ and she loudly proclaimed "No!"
Her co-worker was not dissuaded and proclaimed, "Yes!" and "It was my White Out™ before it was your White Out™!”
Not to be so easily deprived of her White Out™ my girlfriend replied, "I've had that White Out™ since I was a child! It's a family heirloom!"
Co-worker slowly backing away "Uh..."
Girlfriend "My ancestors had that whiteout with them when they came to America."
To which a sarcastic "I didn't realize they had White Out™ back then." was the only possible answer.
"Yes, they were persecuted as witches because they had White Out™!" then unfortunately she burst into a fit of laughter and while she was rolling on the floor the co-worker calmly reached into the desk, took her White Out™ and walked away.

Oh, and on a side note "White Out™!"

Funny thing of October 16, 2005

Today we get to start a new thing. I'm going to end my day by sharing the funniest thing to happen that day. This doesn't mean that they will always be funny just the funniest thing of the day. Here's to not having boring days.

Today it was a simple coincidence. I was hanging out with some friends at Red Robin (nasty) and ran into someone I once worked with. No, that's not very funny is it? OK, how about the fact that the person I ran into was fired from that place? Add to that my having been fired from that place. Funny yet? Let's go one farther and add that the friend that I was hanging out with was hired as the replacement for the fired person I ran into and was also fired. Now it's getting funny, but there is a little more. The friend I was with's first day should have been two days after the person I was running into's last day but the temp agency failed to fire her twice and she wound up coming in for two more days. An awkward moment followed that last day along the lines of "Uh, anyone notice we have one more employee than places to sit? Duck. Duck. Goose!"

OK if I still haven't managed to make you at least smile here's the piece that makes it come full circle. When I mentioned that I was starting a new assignment on Monday it turned out that the person who I was running into's husband happened to be the hiring manager at the place. Lets hope it's a good omen rather than a bad one.

"Free" SkypeOut calls?

"These days, several people have asked me this. (Also noted here.) "Was SkypeOut hacked?" Actually, all is in perfect order and it's just an interesting way of different services working together."

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Japanese Prisoner had to win 1 million yen in Contests for Freedom

On an old Japanese TV show a Japanese comedian was captured and placed in an apartment without clothing, food, and little else and had to win about $10,000 worth in contests in order to be released... all as Japanese TV viewers watched without him knowing! If you didn't hear about this this article is a must read.

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Unexpected Downside of Wind Power

Next month, hundreds of blades will spin to a stop, in what appears to be a wind-energy first: Facing legal threats from environmentalists, the operators of the Altamont wind farm have agreed to shut down half of their windmills.

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Remains of Star Trek's 'Scotty' headed for space

Evidently "Star Trek" actor James "Scotty" Doohan took the catchphrase "beam me up" very seriously -- his cremated remains will be launched into space in accord with his last wishes.

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Beethoven script, missing for 115 years found in a library

An 80-page, handwritten working manuscript score of Beethoven's 'Grosse Fuge' that went missing 115 years ago has been found by a librarian near Philadelphia, The New York Times said on Thursday. "It was just sitting on that shelf. I was in a state of shock," Heather Carbo told the Daily.

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'New' giant ape spotted

An elusive giant ape has been spotted in remote forests in central Africa, sparking theories that it could be a new species of primate.

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Hubble Finds Possible Oxygen Source On The Moon

Using Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, preliminary assessments suggest a newly discovered abundance of titanium and iron oxides. They may be sources of oxygen and a potential resource for human exploration.

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Man spends $2500 on Serenity tickets just to give them away hoping for sequel

"He's a big fan of 'Firefly' and wants the (box office) numbers high enough that the studio will make more of the movies."

Wow, and Thanks!

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23 Ways to Speed Up Windows XP

23 different ways to speed up your Windows XP system (also works for older versions)

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Grow your own limbs healing hope

Future generations may be able to heal without scarring and grow their own replacement limbs

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"Serenity" knocks "Pride" off top of box office

LONDON (Reuters) - Sci-fi action adventure "Serenity" has knocked "Pride and Prejudice" from the top of the UK Box Office charts after three weeks at number one, Screen International said on Tuesday.

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Viagra helps out endangered species

It's not just for the elderly anymore.

Can you imagine the surprise of these poor animals?

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SMS Tea Kettle You Can Turn On With A Text Message!!

The SMS tea kettle lets you send it a text message to turn it on! Now you'll never have to leave the couch except to pour the tea!

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Google Co-Founder Resume from 1996

Take a look at Sergey Brin's resume from 1996, if you have a similar resume maybe you can be worth $11 billion in 9 years.

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New Canon camera detects smiles

This is cool. The camera has an artificial intelligence system which waits for smiles and bright eyes to peak before snapping the picture.

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Track Tagged Sharks, Turtles, Seals And More Online

Nearly real-time satellite data from tagged sea animals. It shows where they are and their movements in the Pacific Ocean.

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How much would you lose if you bought stocks from spam?

Just how much can you lose? This guy kept track of every stock symbol mentioned in a spam e-mail and how much money he would've lost had he actually invested for a few months. Incredible!

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Blogger Uses Math To Solve Pronunciation Problem

When a dictionary won't do to prove the proper way to say something you can always resort to maths. A somewhat unusual method but effective none the less.

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The Serenity/Firefly Wikipedia!

With only *six* days and counting to the North American release of "Serenity", here's everything you ever wanted to know about the "Firefly" 'verse. It's a big damn web site, and it aims to misbehave! Don't go out in the black without it.

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Learn to Curse in Chinese from FIREFLY and SERENITY

Here's a list of Chinese slang and phrases from Firefly.
It's been around for a while but it's a great resource for new Firefly/Serenity fans.

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Box Office Forecast: Serenity is #1!

BoxOfficeMojo.com is predicting that Serenity will be the #1 movie following this weekend. Having seen the movie for myself this afternoon, you'll want to check it out even if you've never seen the TV show, Firefly. Simply put, its a great movie, filled with funny and memorable moments.

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Firefly hits #2 on Amazon's DVD Best Seller list

After being in the top 20 for nearly 2 years, Firely: The Complete Series has moved up to the #2 slot with the release of Serenity.

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Site Redesign

Going slow as you can tell if you happen to look at the last post and it's one month ago date. This is a very different page than it was and will be. I'm still just messing around with it when I'm bored. I prefer this version so far. It looks like the colors might still need some work though.

I Declare This To Be the Greatest Blog Ever.

Well, so far it sucks, but that's just temporary. I prefer to think of it as a beta version of what is to come. After I started this I realized that the tea stuff wouldn't fit in too well with what I had in mind for the rest of this page so I started a separate one.
Teasire
I've been having a lot of fun over there. It's quickly becoming a great place to find tales of the utmost stupidity, the outright thirsty, and the obscenely fickle eccentricities of tea drinkers, transporters, and makers. So give it a look.

As for around here...

Right now this is pretty much using a basic blogger template but I'm really not too please with it and am going to be completely revamping it. When I get the graphics done things can kick into high gear. I've got plenty of ideas for some interesting things to do over here. At this point no ones commented on the things I've posted already so I'll take that as a bit of a sign that I should go in another direction. When the page gets up and going I'll redo them after a few months and add whatever has been submitted, but there's no reason to take them down right now so feel free to post them here or email me at himthatwas.blog@gmail.com

From the Cutting Room Floor: A Makeover Show

Usually the friends and family on these shows look like they themselves could host the show. Everyone the guest/victim knows is entirely too civilized. Granted we all have that one friend that had a mullet all through the 90's and kind of smells funny, but that friend also always has several friends that you'd rather not hang out with. These shows don't show them. Now whenever I watch one of these shows I'm always looking for them. After all isn't it the real mark of a friend to accept you the way you are. I'm more interested in what their “dirty friends” look and sound like. I want to see their tapes.

Maybe some would look like this:

Mullet Man: When we was in college we'd be bangin' chicks like no tomorrow but he's just done lost it. I's need my wingman back.

Dad (to someone off camera): Are you going to make my boy a dandy?
Dad (to the camera): Son, don't you let them touch you down there. They'll tell you it's normal, but it ain't!

Grandma: What? (That's all she says. Maybe add in a "Would you like a piece of chocolate?")

Ol' Three Tooth: The garage coworker. Covered in grease and nasty. He does lots of giggling and more smiling than it's right for someone with so few teeth.

Well, that's some of the ones I would like to see. What would you like to see? Post some characters or things they might say.

The Queen of Profanity

For our first challenge I want to start with something relatively strange and controversial. There is a small country named Profanity and this small country has a Queen. She loves her country but is bothered by all the profanity in Profanity so she comes up with a plan. She will change the meaning of the profane words to things that people really like. Here is a brief example of how it could:

... thus f#ck came to mean good morning, sh*t came to mean Friday, and p*ss was changed ever the slightest to mean puppy. Thus it was that one walking down the street might hear “F#ck to you Mr. Petty. Say, did your dog have her pissies?”

To which you might reply “Yes indeed on sh*t as a matter of fact. You going to be wanting one?”

“No, my wife says she doesn't want any more p*ss in the house.” He might reply.

“Ah well, have f#ck anyhow.”

Since this blogs new I'm not expecting anything very polished. I'm planning to call the winner the one with the funniest or most interesting phrase or paragraph withing the story. I'm not expecting many submissions so I'll probably just post the first few readable ones and if more come in I'll repost the best in about a week or so. You can substitute the profane words for any other but the reader should be able to discern its meaning. You can reuse the original words as other things if you want and have a cascading effect. Say Friday comes to mean sh*t, and the queen changes Friday to mean cake. Now sht means Friday and Friday means cake. What I don't want to have here are racist or hurtful stories so I'm going to limit the profane words usable to the words that George Carlin couldn't use. It's a rather dated list and some of them are consideder downright tame these days but that's probably for the best. Of course you can write whatever you want but I'll only post stories that are not meant to hurt or belittle. I don't mind getting off to a controversial start, but I fear that this topic could set a good or bad precedent for this page.
I'm pretty sure this is the only way to increase your I.Q. by using profanity.
How do you submit you short story? You can email it to me at himthatwas.blog@gmail.com Or if it's small enough you can just post it in the comments for everyone to see. Although I expect I'll have to delete a few.
Write on.

Himthatwas...

First things first, what is this blog? All things to all people? That might be a bit too ambitious, lets start a little smaller.

Steal this Idea!
This is an ongoing challenge (for bragging rights at this point) and an exercise to help people get past writers block. I'll give a simple, strange, yet hopefully always interesting plot twist or premise. The best short (500 to 2000 words, but I'm not actually going to count) story will be printed here and eventually I expect to be able to award prizes. Crappy early prizes (like bragging rights) will be upgradable at a later time so if you write something spectacular before we start giving out goodies you will not be forgotten.

Tea tales
I have been a fan of Tea (Yes, the drink, but if that's your bands name and that's how you got here no hard feelings.) for quite a while now and have found some very odd true stories about drinking, transporting, discovering, and even suicide related to Tea (although the last is bit loosely related). I plan to share as many as possible and welcome you to do the same.

Do you deserve a cup of Tea?
I'm working on a quiz generator that asks this very question. It will have trivia based on Tea and if you know the answer - You do deserve a cup of Tea. Small in concept but the questions will tend more to the obscure rather than mundane. Less of: "How long should you brew Oolong?" More of: "What caused Japanese Tea drinker Ichero to state 'Ah! This is a degenerate age! I will have no more to do with it.' and commit suicide via starvation?"

Around the web, around the brain
I tend to get around the web (as do we all) and come across things that are interesting from time to time. They don't always fit in with this web page nor do they warrant creating a new one but are interesting enough to share. Sometimes they'll just be from the more local cobwebs of my mind. After all you can't have a blog with out a little ranting, self discovery, and philosophical conversations in the third person. Thankfully I'm quite a bit past the whole "What if we're all just someone else dream?" so it shouldn't be too painful for you.

Disclaimer: If it looks like things around here suck at first, remember it's all purposefully done to prolong your enjoyment.