Videos

This is a cartoon made by a friend of mine from high school. It's called 'The Infinite Goliath'. It's about a super-powerful space villain that has been captured, paroled, and forced to live in the suburbs. I thought it was pretty funny:

Here's a clip of a deleted scene from the original Star Wars movie that I'd never seen. Too bad they didn't leave it in.

Color Blind update

By request of My-Friend-Who-Lies (MFWL), here are the pictures from the last post after processing them with the color blind software.

Like I said...U-G-L-Y!!!

Color Blind

My Friend Who Lies (MFWL) is color blind. When we were in college, he would have me help him figure out what color clothes to put on his video game people (What color is this?...Blue...What color is this?...Brown...What color is this?...Red...What color is this?...Greenish Blue...What color is this?...Yellow...Ok! Now for the pants!). His sister numbered his clothes and made him a chart so that he would always know which pants went with which shirts.

So when I found out about this application, I thought of him. It's called Color Oracle, and it changes your computer screen so things look like how a color blind person would see them.

You know what's funny? MFWL's favorite teams are the San Francisco 49ers and the Portland Trailblazers, who both have red as one of their team colors. Take a look at these pictures using the app...U-G-L-Y!!!

Edit: These are the original pictures. For the color blind version, go here.

One Man Band

When you watch this...




Is this...



the first thing you think of?

Me too!

Playing with your food

Sand Dance

Yesterday we went to the park again (no famous neighbors there this time though). We played in the sand mostly and had a good time. When I got home, I noticed that I had some sand in my shoes. I took them off, and banged them out in the garage. I probably should've banged them out somewhere else because now, every time I go out to the garage refrigerator to get a pop (that's what people in Oregon call soda, by the way), I feel like I'm doing the Ethiopian Shim Sham.

New Record

See this ball?


I bounced it on my head nine times in a row last night!

I'm amazing!

Unlimited?

I just saw this, and it made me laugh. According to the article, Papa John's Pizza had some kind of a special deal on 3 Medium 'Unlimited Topping' pizzas. Sounds like a lot right? I mean, with Unlimited toppings, you could stack your pizza with 10 feet of pepperonis and still be within your rights to ask for more. Well...no. Apparently, in this case, 'Unlimited' means 5.

I tried to think about what would happen if this applied to other situations:

'Wow, so you're saying that with this new phone, I get unlimited long distance calling?'
'That's correct sir!'
'That's fantastic! I'll be able to talk with my parents everyday!'
'Well...not exactly...you can call them every day for 5 days...but then you have to wait until the next month.'

OR

'Have you seen this kid jump? I mean, his athleticism is virtually unlimited!'
'Wow, what's his vertical?'
'Five.'

OR

'Hey! The Mona Lisa! I've always wanted to see it! Can I buy it?'
'Sir, the Mona Lisa is priceless! It's value is unlimited!'
'I'll give you five dollars.'
'Done!'

OR

'Sarah! God spoke to me! He said to count the stars in the sky! That is how many descendants he will bless me with!'
'Abraham, that is impossible! The stars are too numerous to count! To my eyes, they are unlimited! I guess we will never know how many descendants we'll have.'
'Actually, it doesn't take that long. There's the big bright one, and the two next to it, and the one a little bit above it, and then the one on the other side. Soooo...Five!'
'Doesn't seem like much of a nation, does it?'

Comic Book Guy

LilKat1 has been collecting a few Yugioh and Pokemon cards. He doesn't really know what these cards are for. There are some kids at school that have a bunch and decided to share some of their cards with him. So he has a little stack of dog-eared cards held together with a rubber band.

I thought it might be fun to buy him a few cards of his own. I didn't want to actually buy a pack of cards, since they're ridiculously expensive for little thin cardboard rectangles. But I thought I could go to a comic book/game store and buy some individual cards. Not the expensive rare cards, but the common ones that people end up with a whole stack of when trying to collect the rare cards and just want to throw away. I've seen a comic book store in town, so I decided to stop in and see if they have any cards that I could pick up. Anyhow, I drove down there and walked in the door. And do you know who I saw?

Seriously! This is the guy that worked at the comic book store! I don't know if this is just how he looks and really fits a stereotype or if he was just trying to go for this look since he's a comic book store guy (if this is the case, then he really hit the nail on the head!). I asked him if he carried what I was looking for and he said that he didn't. I tried to make some interesting conversation with him about comic books (I used to collect them when I was little), but he pulled out his elite-comic-book-snobby-nerd attitude. It was PERFECT! He even smelled funny!

Stuff I read on the internet

Here's a couple of interesting things that I found today...

1) Remember that show, American Gladiators? I loved that show. When I was a sophomore in college, I was watching it on tv and they said that they were going to have a tryout right by my house. I decided that I had to give it a shot. I knew that one of the challenges was to do 24 pullups in 30 seconds. I was in pretty good shape, so I could do this fairly easily. One of the other challenges was to run a 40 yard dash in under 5 seconds. I knew I could do this as well. One of the funner looking challenges was when they matched you up with another candidate in a game of PowerBall. I wasn't sure I could do all of the challenges, but I knew I could at least do a few of them.

Well, it turned out that I couldn't do even one of them. The first challenge that everyone had to do was the pullup challenge. Unfortunately, what I didn't realize was that they didn't use a normal pullup bar. Instead, they brought in some scaffolding for people to do pullups on. The scaffolding bars were very thick. I was pretty much just hanging on by my fingertips. I ended up falling off of the bar twice and only got 17 pullups in. A lot of the guys that made it used pullup straps so that they wouldn't have to grip the bar. If I had done that, I truly believe that I would've been an American Gladiator champion. Well, I would've at least gotten to play PowerBall.

Anyhow, this article says that they're remaking American Gladiators and are going to have a new show on NBC. Looks like I need to start practicing my pullups!

2) A long time ago, did you own the game Mastermind? The original box looked like this:

 

My parents owned this game, and the box sure made it look like it was a very grown up game. If you had this version of the game and grown up, sophisticated people in the picture intimidated you as much as they did me, then you should read this article.

Tennis

When I was little, tennis was one of the big sports in our family for some reason. My dad played a bit. He had a bunch of fancy tennis rackets. My uncle and aunt played a lot. I remember one time going with my dad to play a game of doubles against my uncle and my cousin. I was a bit intimidated, especially since I really didn't play tennis much at all. First of all, my cousin was older than me (still is actually), so he was 'big'. I even think he may have been a Teenager at the time. Second, tennis seemed very important to their family, so they played a lot. When they played doubles, they would actually run plays! My uncle would say something, and then they'd both run to the net. And then there was me, the kid who couldn't even serve properly (actually, I still can't serve).

I wasn't very good at tennis since I rarely played, but I did enjoy it. I also liked watching it, Wimbledon especially. For some reason, I liked rooting for John McEnroe. I remember getting really excited when he beat Bjorn Borg. I also remember watching Wimbledon at my aunt and uncle's vacation house in Santa Cruz and being shocked that this Boris Becker kid actually won Wimbledon. He can't win! He's not even seeded! McEnroe should win, not Boris Becker!

I don't follow tennis at all anymore, and I never play. But I just watched this commercial and it brought back a bunch of those goofy tennis memories.

DIY Project

Ok, I found the perfect science fair project for my kids. No need to make blue celery or baking soda volcanoes! This is much better!

Cotton Candy Machine - The best home videos are here

Busy Busy Busy

I haven't done an update here in a while, but I have several posts that are half done. I've found that it takes me a long time to do a really interesting post. And lately it seems like it's very hard to find any free time. But the fall soccer season is officially over now, so hopefully, that will make things a little less busy. Although we are thinking of signing both boys up for basketball. We'll see.

Anyhow, here are my 3 interesting things for the day.

1) One of the cats threw up on my VOIP router. It still works, but it's pretty yucky.

2) I made my first 2 running goals! Now I have 2 little medals!

3) I just saw this video:

Slickdeals.net

I love Slickdeals.net. It's a website that helps you find good (sometimes great) deals on lots of different things. If Slickdeals.net did not exist, I would have a lot more money. But I would also have a lot less cool stuff!

Here are some of my favorite deals:

100 GB Hard Drive for $5

160 GB Hard Drive plus 200 GB External Hard Drive for $20 total

Tonka Mighty Dump Truck (with flames) for $5

Lazer Tag Master Blaster for $5 (got 4 of them)

 

Other good deals include:

Free Schick Quattro razors

Free can of some green energy drink that I can't remember

200 CD jewel cases for $2

3 boxes of Nestle Crunch Sticks for Free

 

But my all time favorite deal was:

28 twelve pack cases of various flavors of Pepsi

3 24-packs of bottled water

12 bags of Lays/Tostitos chips

for $20 (actually $120, but with $100 in Safeway and Home Depot gift cards). And if I turned in the cans for the deposit money, it would be free!

 

I still have a bunch of the Pepsi left over. When I first put it in my garage, it looked like someone had just dropped off a pallet of Pepsi at my house. And our cupboards were full of chips.

 

My newest SlickDeal is a cast iron hibachi for $40. Do I need a new grill? No. I already have 4 grills of various sizes. Am I buying it because $40 is not very much money to me? No. I could really use $40 (I could almost buy Tide of Iron with that money!). Can the hibachi do things that my other grills can't do? Not really. Anything I could cook on the hibachi, I could easily cook on one of my other grills (although, if I went to the beach or tailgating, the hibachi would be much easier to bring along. Unfortunately, I can't think of the last time I did either of those things).

You know, I just saw the deal on the front page and, somehow, my love of grills, cast iron, good deals compelled me to make the purchase. I really like SlickDeals, but it has a way of very slowly chipping away at both my disposable income and my available storage space.

Good News from the Fair!

Check out this article from the NY Times. If you're going to the Indiana State Fair, you're in for a treat. Apparently, thanks to some new regulation, you can now be sure that your deep fried Snickers and deep fried Oreos were fried in oil that contains 0% trans-fats! Which is really good news because otherwise, they'd be really bad for you.

The article also references the addition of the deep fried Pepsi. Although if eating the can results in Alzheimer's, they may have to do something about that as well.

Legos

I love legos...

 

Caramel Corn

 

A couple of days ago, Mrs BigKat took the kids to a local farm. They love it there because there's all sorts of fun places for them to play in (like the Nut House. They love the Nut House. It's this little room filled with hazelnuts. Piles of hazelnuts all over the floor).

Anyhow, she came back with a bag of caramel corn that you can see in the picture. Kind of weird looking stuff. Each piece is huge, much larger than a standard piece of popcorn. And it says that there are no hulls or kernels in the bag. So what you have are a bunch of monster-size-cheetos-like-caramel-coated-Franken-corns. I tried a piece and it was REALLY good. Too good. I had a couple more pieces. Then a couple more. It was hard to stop eating it.

But it turns out that there is a very good reason for stopping. This stuff is really bad for you! This little bag pictured above contains 11 servings! Each serving is 2/3 of a cup. Which is like maybe 4 or 5 pieces. If you ate the whole bag, you would've consumed 99 grams of fat (33 of them saturated) and over 1500 calories.

I think we've discovered the Haagen Dazs of popcorn.