Zomgee

Imagine the money to be gained if a shipping company was able to send packages across time and space constraints. Imagine how revolutionary that would be…

I ordered a laptop nigh unto 10 days ago and it was shipped on Tuesday. While the end-to-end trip was not close to immediate, various stops along the way actually take it back in time. I present to you proof that FedEx has finally broken the time space continuum.

Or, to put that chronologically-

So, as you can see, the shipment arrived in Alaska before it left China, and arrived in Indianapolis before it arrived in Alaska. At this rate, I should have my new laptop by yesterday!

As a humble apology and desperate attempt to bring you content you haven’t seen yet, I give you… Cry baby Hillary.

One of the things that I love about Hillary, absolutely LOVE, is how she can sound like she’s making sense, but be speaking nonsense at the same time. For instance, the last sentence of that video clip is: “I just believe so strongly in who we are as a nation.” Huhwah? Now me, I personally believe so strongly in the child-like youth of a newborn baby. What does that even mean?

To add to the laughability, Hillary has completely altered her appearance to be more “I can change things, I’ll do what you want” etc etc, and yet in her short stint so far as senator, she’s accomplished next to nothing and she does not do what I want: quit. If she can’t even successfully follow through with eating right and excercising (as she says in the clip), how is she going to run a nation? She makes a huge deal (somewhat in this video, more elsewhere) about how being apart of a previous presidency (yet she never calls it what it is: a giant coattail ride the likes of which even Six Flags can’t even dream about) has given her experience and how she has had considerable time around the Oval Office. To that I say “Woah nelly.” Why? Well if she was truly around the Oval Office on a consistent basis, the name “Monica Lewinsky” might still be unfamiliar to us.

This is why women should not take men shopping against their will:

After Mr. and Mrs. Fenton retired, Mrs. Fenton insisted her husband accompany her on her trips to Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, Mr. Fenton was like most men — he found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally, unfortunately, Mrs. Fenton was like most women — she loved to browse. One day Mrs. Fenton received the following letter from her local Wal-Mart…

Dear Mrs. Fenton,

Over the past six months, your husband has been causing quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behaviour and may be forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against Mr. Fenton are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.

1. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.
2. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, “Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away.”
3. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&M’s on layaway.
4. September 14: Moved a ‘CAUTION - WET FLOOR’ sign to a carpeted area.
5. September 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told other shoppers he’d invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department.
6. September 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed, ‘Why can’t you people just leave me alone?’
7. November 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.
8. December 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled ‘PICK ME! PICK ME!’
9. December 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed ‘OH NO! IT’S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!’
And last, but not least…
10. December 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, then yelled very loudly, ‘Hey! There’s no toilet paper in here!’

Regards,
Wal-Mart

Over the past few days, I’ve been keeping on eye on the developments in Pakistan with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of that country (1988-1990 and 1993-1996). Both times the president fired her for allegations of corruption.

Eventually, she exiled herself from the country for 8 years, and in October, returned. Her entrance back into the country, however, was met with an assassination attempt, killing 136 people in the process, but, miraculously, she was spared.

Since then, she has blamed the current sitting president, Pervez Musharraf, for not doing enough to ensure her security. On Wednesday, after leaving a rally, shots were fired at her vehicle and a bomb on a nearby motorcycle exploded. Today, however, more information was released as to how she died.

It wasn’t the gunshots (all 3 missed her). It wasn’t the bomb (directly, at least). Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto killed herself when she ducked back inside the sunroof she was standing through and hit her head on one of the latches for the sunroof. Apparently, the force of hitting that latch was enough to fracture her skull.

Man knows not his time- nor the means.

May everyone have a safe and joyful Christmas.

Let me first start off by saying: “Wow.” I don’t even know where to begin with this movie.

Will Smith. Who knew he could match or beat his performance in The Pursuit of Happyness. This is by far his best movie to date. He is naturally funny in all his movies and in the movie previously mentioned, he shows a softer, more genuine side. This is … quite departure from, or rather, an extension of those previous roles. He makes you laugh, he makes you cry, he makes you feel like Chuck Norris needs to watch his back.

If you’ve been totally oblivious to the overall plot of this movie, that’s ok. If you’d like to keep it that way, stop reading. I won’t spoil, however.

It’s a few years into the future and a cure-for-cancer-turned-zomgee-creating virus has done its job. Granted, nobody could have foreseen it, but it happened nonetheless. Robert Neville (Smith) spends his time living in a post-apocalyptic New York City, similar to a thawed-out NYC from The Day After Tomorrow; London from Reign of Fire, substituting zomgees for dragons; or a non-raised-eyebrow version of Planet of the Apes. There’s something oddly thrilling about imagining life alone and having free reign of the world’s largest city. The flashbacks you see in the previews are actually spread out through the entire movie. They are quite predictable but provide a … completeness as to why Neville chose to stay behind. Thankfully, the writer’s don’t go overboard with Neville taking on the zomgees or trying to find their source and eliminating them. No, instead he hides away, avoiding contact while trying to find a cure.Technically, it was a good movie. I don’t recommend buying the soundtrack, as you’ll get about 5 minutes of audio and 4 of those minutes are from a Bob Marley record. Some people have criticized the CG effects, but a) compared to even 3 years ago, they are amazing, and b) when almost 100% of your landscape is CG, you sacrifice quality for quantity. The quality, however, was not distracting in any way. The acting was incredible, there’s really nothing more to say about that. I am slow, but willing, to say that he bested Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Besides, dog > volleyball any day.To summarize, it was a uncomplicated movie that was epically thrilling (more thrilling than Signs, less epic than LotR) with an amazing acting job by Will Smith in an environment that’s strangely … cool.

In Top Gear fashion, I present my board of best movies of 2007 so far:

1. I Am Legend (95)
2. Transformers (92*)
3. Live Free or Die Hard (88*)
4. Bourne Ultimatum (86*)
5. Spider-Man 3 (84*)
6. 3:10 to Yuma (80*)
7. Pirates 3 (78*)

* denotes a relatively scaled system since I don’t have a per-item scale for them

We’ve been in the midst of Presidential election campaigning for nigh unto a year now, and frankly, I’m getting sick of it all. I’m tired of the double speak from journalists and writers saying that we shouldn’t vote for a president who holds religious beliefs because religion shouldn’t play into this election (isn’t that letting religion play into the election?) or who advocate electing a woman/black man almost solely for those qualities (and speak out against sexism/racism with the next breath).

For your benefit, I’ve thrown together a list of things I’m putting into practice until November 08.

• Ignore the media. It’s a good thing. I’m going to do myself a favor this year and research the candidates on my own- from unbiased and biased sources alike.
• Avoid brainwashing. I will not accept the mindless, zombie-like groups’ opinion as fact *cough college campuses cough*
• Beware of those zombie mobs. I will remember that they can be violent if opposition to Colbert or Ron Paul is heard.
• Resist the temptation to follow the crowd. I know that everyone at school seems to support one person, but not only are my beliefs and opinions my own (hence my candidate), limiting my view to only my peers limits my “big-picture view” to one demographic and doesn’t accurately show the real big picture.
• Weigh your choice against their real-world success. I will not support a candidate with no chance at all of winning. This will potentially make a viable and desirable 2nd choice candidate lose their chance as well.
• Identify with a candidate. When the field narrows and I have a clear winner in my mind, I’ll support them proudly and try to convince others as well.
• Get to know the candidates. Looking like an ignorant fool (while common in my case) is not an option when it comes to supporting a candidate.
• Don’t be a poor loser. You don’t have to make a million websites if your candidate loses- Deal with it. And for crying out loud, scrape the loser’s sticker off of your bumper

That being said, there are a few good resources out there to help you decide what candidate you really like.

• http://www.2decide.com/table.htm - A quick-reference chart of sorts matching cadidates to their stances on issues.
• http://www.selectsmart.com/president/2008.html - A simple questionnaire that matches you to a candidate (don’t rely too much on this, as it only showed me a 55% match with “my” candidate even though we are identical on issues, although it portrayed my 2nd and 3rd choices accurately)
• http://apps.facebook.com/elections/ - A Facebook app to tell the world who you support
• http://apps.facebook.com/fakeelection/ - Show who you really support

A few weeks ago, I found myself yet again at Tom’s apartment tinkering with games and wondering how we could get our birds to .. well.. poop. Now before you start to question our sanity- or the healthy atmosphere of Tom’s apartment, let me explain.

We’ve tried to get a sub-game of Garry’s Mod to work countless times now. Quite simply, its a game where a bird tries to land “one” on a human character. At the same time, that human character is using a shotgun to blow that bird out of the sky. Its such a profound concept that we just had to give it a try. Unfortunately, nothing we did could coax our little bird friends to let loose.

Towards the end of the stage where we began giving up, I remembered a web site that offered a pretty cool sounding service. Answers. To anything. Via text message. You know what is even better? It’s free! (minus the cost of the text messages if you don’t have a text plan)

Here’s how it works. You sign up with Mosio, fill out a form with some of your information (including your cell number) and they send a confirmation text to your phone. You reply to that and you’re in business.

Using your cell you can text ask@mosio.com and within a short while, not only will the question be posted online, but you should receive an answer from up to 4 people.

Now I don’t know about you, but asking the question, “How do you fire bird poo in garrys mod 9 bird poo game” seems like something maybe 1 or 2 people in the entire world would know how to answer.

It seems like that 1 person is on mosio.com, because here is what I got back, both in my profile on Mosio and on my cell phone.

So the next time you find yourself away from a computer and are in dire need of some information (and have registered with Mosio), just remember that the answer is only a text away.

If you’re from an area that regularly receives snow (such as NY) and you actually go outside to experience said frozen water crystals, then you know that getting snow rubbed in your face is probably the least favored thing to have happen to you- except maybe sliding off the road and ending up face first in a ditch.

I thought I’d share some of my tips on winter-weather driving. Forget what the DMV says about winter driving, listen to me instead (I’m kidding, pay attention y’all- that’s why I included the link).

Windshield

• Keep it defrosted! Start your defroster when you start your car and give it some time to heat up the windshield. The last thing you want is to be just pulling out of a driveway and suddenly you can’t see a thing (breath + cold windshield = fog).
• Get all the ice and snow off the outside of the windows. Leaving frozen precip will guarantee foggy windows.
• Don’t scrape the car itself. Besides leaving scratches, the ice breaking free from your car might take paint chips with it.
• Top off the washer fluid reservoir frequently. With the amount of salt used on the roads, its just a matter of time before its on your car.
• Winter wipers are a good investment and are usually pretty cheap (~$10 each).
• Don’t forget the rear window and defroster.
• Clear off your lights.

Gas

• Always make sure you have plenty of gas. This ensures that you’ll live longer if you get stranded.
• Keep the tank at least 50% full. Water/snow has a tendency to get into the tank and freeze in the gas lines. This will make it impossible to start your car. Keeping the tank mostly full will lower the risk of this happening.
• You’ll notice that during the winter your mpg’s will go down. This is because air is denser when it is cold and the car will compensate, adding in more fuel to the mixture. Simple physics tells you that this allows for increased horsepower as well. Add in “spirited” parking lot driving and a 5 mpg hit can been noticed.

Engine

• Make sure your car isn’t running straight water for coolant. Use 50/50 or as recommended to avoid the block freezing.
• Make sure to change your oil every 3000 miles or as instructed to make sure your engine is a happy engine. Water in the oil is not a good sign, as this can freeze in the lines.
• Check your brake, power steering, and transmission fluid levels as well. This is the lifeblood of your car!

Tires

• Make sure your tires have adequate tread depth and are not “sport” or “GT” or anything like that.
• Science says that when it gets colder out, the air pressure in your tires goes down. I’ve had 2 flats already because of this. Make sure to keep the tires at the recommended pressure. Over-inflating tires might save a little gas and under-inflated tires might increase dry-surface traction, but so much as a 5 psi variance either way from the recommended pressure has drastic abnormal tire-wear implications.

Driving Habits

• Allow plenty of time. Rushing is never a good idea. It easily takes a good 5 minutes to warm up the car.
• If the weather is really bad, stay at home.
• Don’t pull out in front of people. Besides the lowered braking ability if the roads are slippery, chances are you’ll spin the tires pulling out in front of them.
• Don’t go fast. There’s just no reason to. If the snow/ice doesn’t get you, the salt will. Salty roads don’t offer much traction.
• Don’t go extremely slowly. Even in the worst circumstances, 25 mph should be the absolute minimum. If visibility is good but traction is limited, 35 mph on a state road (55mph limit) is decent. Driving excessively slowly puts you at risk of getting hit from behind or, in an attempt to slow down or pass, puts the other car in a ditch.
• Avoid roads that haven’t been plowed. Just. Don’t. Even. Try.
• If, for some reason, your car becomes disabled and you have to leave it by the side of the road, get as far over and put on the blinkers! It doesn’t matter how bright and sunny it is out, night falls eventually and snow happens, and if your car is in the way and people can’t see it…
• If you get stuck, make sure any straps you get towed by are attached securely to the frame.
• Lastly, don’t forget some granola bars, blankets, and cell phone when you leave the house. They just may save your life.

Disclaimer: Always use caution and common sense while driving. Obey all traffic and safety laws. Buckle up! Remember that this post is not the final word and may not necessarily be true in all circumstances. While we try to be a helpful outlet to you, we are not responsible for how you drive and the resultant effects. In other words, don’t come crying to us when you wrap your car around a light pole doing crazy donuts in a parking lot just because you heeded our (my) advice to keep your tires at the correct pressure.

So by now you should have seen the sweet looking countdown letting you know when zomgee.com is going live. I’m actually writing this quite a few hours beforehand so that this is waiting for you when the doors to this place open. Let me explain what is going on here.

Tom, Pete, and I decided that instead of three separate blogs, we’d pull together and have a joint blog- tying together each of our unique reader base and shifting our focus from large, infrequent, and often personal posts to shorter (sometimes), more frequent (hopefully), and widely appealing articles. I, personally, have several awesome ideas for posts I want to get started on, but those shall come soon.

Believe me- the stuff we’re going to be spitting out for you guys is just about as diverse as you can imagine.. everything from cars, tech stuff, computers, and games to stuff that I can’t even speculate about right now. All this to say- you’re going to want to register- or at least subscribe.

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