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Weird, man.

Tonight: My High School Reunion

Well, tonight's the night... I'm going to my 25 year class reunion. It's not the full-on, dinner-and-DJ thing (that's tomorrow night, I opted out of that one), it's just a get-together at a winery in Geneva-On-The-Lake.

I have yet to go to attend any of my class reunions. I wasn't very popular. I just didn't fit into any of the available categories. I wasn't in the brainy crowd. I wasn't in the burnout crowd. I wasn't a jock. I was just one of those in-between, blend-into-the-woodwork kinda kids. In fact, I was barely given the time of day during my high school years. I was a skinny, nerdy guy who could draw cartoons. That was the one thing I was known for. I was pretty much known as the kid who could draw cartoons (along with my friend George, who I always envied for being a better artist than myself.)

So why have I not attended any of my reunions? Well for one thing, I lived out of state for several years so I missed the first couple. Then when it came time to attend my 20th I was sort of like, f#@* it. I don't mean to sound cynical or harsh but I've always been of the mindset that, hey, if you're not interested in associating or communicating with me 99.999999% of the other days of my adult life then why are you interested to talk to me now? I think we all know the answer to that one: because you wanna see how you measure up. Facebook I cannot stand, partly because of this very reason. People appear out of nowhere and come off as though they have always liked you and how they remember the good old days. Good old days? WTF good old days were there? Not between me and 99% of the class. I had like, two friends. They were all I needed. I found out very early in life that really, all I needed were a few good friends. The rest of the crowd will only be there until the police show up. If there's one thing I do not care for it's half-ass friends. I don't mind being social or friendly with people and I don't mind the small talk that goes with it, but seriously, what's the point? I can be a half-ass friend to the dude at the gas station on the corner. But why would I waste my time doing that? Exactly.

I don't know if anyone will remember me. I'm thinking anyone who does will say something like, "Oh man, I remember you -- you're the dude who used to draw cartoons!" Meh.

Wish me luck!

Friday FAILS: Young Bruce Lee

Stanton Friedman Is Real (Part 4)

Friday FAILS: Car Handstand

Fail. Pretty much.

William Shatner Teaches Kids How Cool It Is To Launch Rockets (Rare Footage)

Some old-ass footage here. And as always, you can never get too much Shatner — especially 70's Shatner!

Binocular Soccer

It's funnier than it sounds.

Coca-Cola Unveils New Fizzy Milk Drink

Coca-Cola scientists have developed a new delicious drink. It's a fruit-flavored, fizzy milk drink called "Vio." The beverage is being test-marketed in New York at $2.50 a bottle.

According to a representative from Coca-Cola, the drink tastes “like a birthday party for a polar bear.” Sounds yumm-ay!

Read more over at Trendhunter...

Thanks, Trendhunter!

Video Game Commercial Is Just A Little Bizarre

Just a little.

Are You Any Good In The Bedroom? Download This iPhone App

Some of these iPhone apps are insane — this one actually calculates your sexual prowess in the bedroom! No lie. Read this.

Atari 2600 Synthcart Mod = 100% Nerd Fun

Okay so apparently there's a home-brew cartridge for the legendary Atari 2600/VCS that turns the console into a (somewhat primitive) synthesizer. That idea alone is pretty awesome but this guy has rigged his VCS to some crazy-ass gear and all I can say is "wow!" Check this out...



Makes you kinda want one, doesn't it?

Virtual Speak & Spell

It's just like the one you remember! Maybe. Okay, so if you were born after 1985 you probably never had one. But still.

Go ahead. Have some fun.

Goodbyns

Maturity is overrated. I want one.

Funny Otter

Thanks, I Can Has Cheez Burger

Stanton Friedman Is Real (Part 3)

Awesome Vortex Cannon

Holy - - !

DJ Hero Special Edition Is Kinda Cool And Probably Expensive

Considering that the straight-up, standard version of the game is going to retail for $120, I suspect this special edition (called DJ Hero Renegade, what a dumb name) may cost in the neighborhood of $200. Head over to Kotaku for more info and pics!

Thanks, Kotaku!

FML

If you haven't had the pleasure, I highly recommend visiting this site:

F My Life

The F stands for... well... I don't want to type the first word, but it rhymes with duck. The site is filled with thousands of (supposedly true) everyday stories that always end with the letters "FML." For example:

Today, my boss asked me to call his new phone to make sure it's working. When his phone didn't ring, he looked at my phone to confirm I called him. My boss then saw that I'd entered him into my phonebook as "douche bag". FML

Here are just a handful of my recent favorites:

Today, I finally told my parents I would be changing bedrooms because I could no longer stand hearing them having sex, which is awkward and disturbing. Later, my dad came and asked me quietly if I thought my mom sounded "satisfied." FML

Today, I came home from living in Spain for 2 years. My mom made dinner for me, and she had forgotten about my allergy to citrus, because she made lemon chicken. After using my EpiPen, and calling 911 for myself, I heard my mom say to my dad, "She always did have to be the center of attention." FML

Today, my dad's boss called our house and I answered. He said "is your dad home?" I replied "I'll go check." I put the phone on mute and asked my dad if he wanted to talk to his boss. My dad says "Does that asshole not have a life?" Turns out the phone wasn't on mute, it was on speaker. FML

Today, my boyfriend and I were on the phone. He started talking dirty, and saying how horny he was, etc. So I decided to play along and said "I want you to picture me naked, baby." All of a sudden I heard a huge sigh. He responded, "Ew, that just killed it." FML

Today, I came home about two hours early from a friend's party. After I walked in and upstairs, I quickly and quietly left and went back to the party. I guess my parents decided to have a little party as well. It's called a threesome with my neighbor. They still don't know that I know. FML

Today, I noticed that my very expensive facial cleanser was almost out. I had moved in with my boyfriend recently, and questioned him, telling him "You don't have to use so much to wash your face. That's a $70 bottle." To which he responded, "Oh, that nice-smelling stuff? Yeah, I use that on my junk." FML

Today, a resident went missing at our nursing home. When I found him, a man in a blue shirt and red pants, he started yelling at me in confusion. I just thought it was his alzheimers. When I brought him to my administrator, I was told the missing resident was wearing a red shirt and blue pants. Wrong guy. FML

Today, my wife is divorcing me because she wants to party more with her friends alone. One year ago, I followed her to Norway, where her family lives. I left my friends, family and job opportunities (which were very good) in order to live with her. Now I am shoveling sh*t on a horse farm. FML

Quite Possibly The Worst "White Guy Rapper" To Ever Make The Attempt

omfg I will never be able to comprehend just what the hell some people are thinking when they do stuff like this. This guy actually thought he had a real shot at marketing himself — as an average, working class, white rapper — with this terrible, god forsaken video.

Guest Flirts With Fox News Tart

Ainsley Earhardt, to be more precise.

Stanton Friedman Is Real (Part 2)

Stanton Friedman Is Real (Part 1)

Stanton Friedman: F As In Fascinating

Just who the heck is Stanton Friedman, you ask?

• He is a nuclear physicist
• He used to work on top-secret, classified government projects for companies such as GE and McDonnel Douglas
• He believes in the existence of alien beings, and that they have been visiting earth for decades

"WTF," you say?

There are thousands of UFO conspiracy theorists, video fakers, and kooks just out to make a buck — but I really trust Stanton Friedman and I'll tell you why. He has a lot of credibility.

Keep in mind that during my early days in Cali I worked with a guy who used to freak me out. This guy believed "Batman and floating space orbs (like the one Luke practiced on in Star Wars) are real because if we can imagine them, they are real." He believed a lot of other strange things, among them, that androids are disguised as people. Yeah. WTF underlined 8,000 times. To this day I cannot agree with most of the craziness this guy used to espouse.

But Stanton Friedman really does make an argument for a lot of things most of us disregard as pure fantasy. The guy is credible. He's intelligent. He's a nuclear physicist, for god's sake.

If you've ever wondered whether we are alone in this universe... whether we may or may not have been visited by beings from another world... check out the video clip below.

I'll post more on Friedman in the coming days...

War Begins

Listen to this awesome, so-epic-it-cannot-be-any-more-epic-er orchestrated piece. It's called "War Begins" and once you hear it you will want to run outside, climb a hilltop and assemble an army to battle global terrorism.



What a great, powerful piece of music that is, by a man named Brian Tyler. I think it was originally scored for a Dune mini-series but I could be wrong. I do know that a portion of it was used in one of the trailers for J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek. It's what I was hoping for when they were scoring the actual film, but what we ended up with (Michael Giacchino) was largely forgettable. Don't get me wrong, I think the Trek score had its moments but by and large they paled in comparison to this mighty piece of work.

Thanks to Eric for the link!

Want To Have Your Mind Blown? Watch These Seven Minutes And Fifteen Seconds Of Carl Sagan

In this clip, Carl Sagan (R.I.P.) talks about other dimensions, seeing visitors from other dimensions and... well... things like that. And he talks about it as cavalierly as you or I might discuss a movie about talking robots.

Chances are, if you're like me, you are pretty much clueless when it comes to the full comprehension of this kind of stuff. Regardless, I think it's fascinating...

Have Even More Fun Hitting Stuff With These Light-Up Drumsticks

I thought of this idea about six years ago but obviously I'm still working for the man and scraping nickels and dimes just to make ends meet, so you can see I am not the inventor of these cool drumsticks. F#%* no, I'm not bitter.

So. These suckers light up every time they hit an object, say cymbals or whatnot. Check 'em out, they're only $15 a pair plus shipping which is not unreasonable considering a decent pair of wood sticks can set you back about eight bucks.

Obama Palooza

In my effort to track down the artist/source of "Awesome," (a.k.a. the bizarre Obama painting) I tripped over several other images. I thought I would share.

The Most FUN Wedding Entrance In The History Of Weddings

My wife and I are going to renew our vows in the church next year. This is what I would love to do. You think she'll go for it?

I can't think of a better way to celebrate something so joyous!

PS, this actually choked me up a little. Don't tell anyone.

Dad Builds AT-AT Bunk Bed For His Kid, Is Probably The Greatest Dad Ever

Can you deny it?

Thanks to Geekologie

SDCC Report: Tron Legacy P.R. Goes All-Out

I am still awe-struck by this. Last night in San Diego, Disney pretty much pwn'ed James Cameron and his little Avatar with an amazingly geekified spectacle promoting Tron Legacy. You must — I repeat — you must watch these three clips:

The Unveiling

Inside Flynn's Arcade

Lightcycle, Anyone?

I worked in the video game industry for nearly five years and paid witness to dozens and dozens of awesome P.R. events, some of them just extraordinary in scope (at one point I should probably blog about some of them), but I have to say from a hype-building standpoint I'm not sure I've ever seen anything more awesome than the above. And I'm not even a big Tron fan. Yeah I owned Tron Deadly Discs on Intellivision (fun game actually) and I played my fair share of the coin-ops but that's about it.

Tron Deadly Discs

Tron Coin-Op

Disney recreated Flynn's Arcade complete with all of the games and even an air hockey table. They even programmed and assembled full-sized, fully-working Space Paranoids arcade machines for this... like the one seen in the original film! On top of that, Disney built a full-size lightcycle for god's sake! And they did it all to promote the sequel to a movie that — quite honestly, didn't perform all that well back in the day. If there were any questions, Disney is clearly serious about this franchise.

And yeah, before you say it, I agree that hype does not necessarily equal greatness (in most cases it does not), but you would have to concede Disney is really playing to the geek community here. And I think that's cool.

Cameron must be secretly dying inside right about now. I know I would be.

Thanks to Ain't It Cool News for the clips

Bizarre Obama Painting

Okay so this has to win some kind of WTF award or something. My buddy Eric sent it to me this morning. His description is quite apt:

"Obama riding a Yorkie shooting rabbits from his laser hand, with a large shirtless black man shooting a cat from his laser hands at butterflies with another black man on a banana phone behind them while they all fly in the blood splattered clouds amongst falling ducks and the Challenger explosion on the left… and the guy on the banana phone is BETWEEN Obama and the shirtless guy… it’s a midget!"

It's almost like a bizarro version of The NeverEnding Story. Except more psychotic. Like, 1,100 times more.


I have no idea who's behind this Obama masterpiece despite several search attempts online. I don't know what the name of it is either. No matter. From this day on, I will dub thee "Awesome."

Thanks to Eric and Dunkin

Friday FAILS

Since I've been very lazy with these the past several weeks, I'm going to try to redeem myself. Here's a who-oooole shit-load... and there's some great ones in there too! Enjoy!

Weather Man FAIL

Welcome Sign FAIL

Stop Smoking FAIL

Parenting FAIL

Google Maps FAIL

Wildlife Photography FAIL

Reading FAIL

Vehicle Delivery FAIL

OS FAIL

Advertising FAIL

Game Show Contestant FAIL

Parenting FAIL

Handlebar Replacement FAIL

Equal Pricing FAIL

Cross Country Ad FAIL

Promotional FAIL

Advice WIN

As always, special thanks to Fail Blog

Hot Chicks Dressing Up Like Superheroes

I am willing to bet that the majority of these girls are absolutely, certifiably bonkers. As in coo-coo for Co-Co Puffs. As in throw little rocks at your window at 2AM, "fatal attraction" crazy. But man they look really, really good. Most of them do, anyway.