Nothing more needs to be said.

Operation removes lightbulb from anus - Yahoo! News

MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass lightbulb in his anus.

Some people have all the luck

I served on one jury when I lived in NJ. It took 2 days just to get assigned. The case lasted 4 days. After you sit through all 4 days, they pick 2 alternates. I was one of the alternates. The 2 of us sat in a tiny, windowless room. For two days. Weren't allowed to speak to each other. Waited. Waited. The jury reached a verdict. We were excused.

Dr. S. Edward Dakil, a urologist called as an expert witness, repeatedly prompted laughter from the jury when discussion turned to the penis pump. Dakil defended use of the device after defense attorney Clark Brewster said it was an out-of-date treatment for erectile dysfunction.
“I still use those,” Dakil testified.Brewster paused.
“Not you, personally?” he asked.
“No,” Dakil responded as jurors laughed. “I recommend those as a urologist.”

Ex-judge’s trial pumps up giggles - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com

How come I never get to serve on these juries? I still don't even know what the verdict was in my case.

technorati tags:Penis Pump, Oklahoma, Jury, My luck

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Six drummers, one apartment

An old friend of mine who lives in Brussels, just sent me this link to a Google Video that is quite spectacular.  Throws me back to my drum corps and STOMP days -- yeah, baby, yeah! Right around minute 7:00 it gets jamming and rocks. What a groove...

Gnarls Barkley vs. Beastie Boys

Holy shit this is damn GREAT!  How come I rarely hear this when I go out?  Bad ass mashup of Gnarls Barkley and the Beastie Boys.  Hells yeah!

The Devil Wears Prada Theater Uniforms

So....Molly and I went to a Gen Arts event last night that was showing The Devil Wears Prada starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and everyone's favorite Entourager Adrian Grenier. The movie was really good! Meryl Streep plays, looks and is dressed like Cruella De Vil and I couldn't get it out of my mind. What a fantastic role for her!

This is the first movie I have seen in a theater in a long time. As anyone can tell you, I am a HUGE movie fan. I probably own about 175 DVDs. I have HBO and Cinemax. I have been known to watch Pay-Per-View [though, RCN's pay-per-view BLOWS!] I was really looking forward to not only getting to see the movie before its general release, but to really enjoy the movie experience. I am a sucker for a large popcorn and large soda, even though the mark up is so huge. I was really excited.

We arrive at the theater and decide to get seats prior to my getting popcorn. As we are heading into the theater, there are 3 security guards at the entrance. "Wow, they are being really strict since none of us have tickets only a stamp," I thought to myself. As we walk forward, the first woman states that she has to search Molly's purse. "That's weird," I thought. Molly brought a bottle of water into the theater; we were both worried that they wouldn't allow the water in. Nope. No problem with the water.

The next guard asks to see our mobile phones and won't let us into the theater with them on. We must shut them off before he will let us in. Huh? Ummmm....ok. Whatever. I believe that I am responsible enough to set it to silent, but whatever.

The final guard has a metal detector wand and basically searches us prior to letting us in. Across my pants and shirt. Across Molly's bag and her dress. "WTF?" Molly is pretty confused at this point but we head to our seats.

I explain that these are some of the new experiences that the movie studios are providing for us. See, they don't actually like us or respect us that much. They don't really understand that our coming to watch the movie in a theater is for the experience. The smell of the popcorn. The huge seats. The huge screen. The booming sounds. They think that it is just about seeing Meryl Streep. About us dreaming to be movie stars.

I continue that movie studios think that we are all criminals and are all trying to steal their content. They don't actually get that I will pay for this content many different times (DVD, Cable, Pay-Per-View) and have coughed up the additional money for this screening because I coming for the experience. I am a 33 year old professional, working my ass off to create value in a startup and won't sneak a video camera into a theater to create a less than optimal copy of content. Unfortunately, the movie studios don't agree and would rather treat me like I am heading into a high security vault or a jail.

But, hey. It's not about the experience in their mind, right? It's about the IP rights.

No worries, though. We got in early enough for good seats (whew, at least security created a little bit of a line so there was less competition for the good seats). So I head back out to get my popcorn and soda. Yum. Almost $10 for a large bag and a large Coke. I am guessing that their cost, minus salary, is around $.10-.18 for the goods, but hey, it is for the experience, right? No worries. I love the smell. Mmmmm...makes my saliva swirl in my mouth right now as I type this!

As I head back into the theater, I am subjected to the tests again. Metal detector. Phone. Etc.

This time I wasn't as cool with it.

I stopped to let the guard know that:

It is a shame that the business model of the movie studios is inflexible and out of date. Hence, their inability to adjust to a world where content is readily available on multiple devices and from multiple sources has led to the theaters losing the one advantage that they have over my living room: the experience. I have paid all of this money to come re-experience Hollywood: smells, grandeur, dreams, and escape. Instead, I feel like I have paid for the experience to feel like a criminal. I suggest that as a theater employee, you should be concerned for your job as you are turning away loyal fans because the movie studios don't care about me and take away the only

During the movie, the wonderful experiences persisted. As enjoyed the excellent acting, wonderful story and beautiful women on the screen, I was distracted by movement on my left and right. There were devils in Pradasecurity uniforms paroling the theater staring at us. I have called the theater to check this out, but my assumption is that they were looking for anyone using a recording device. At least they were consistent in degrading the experience.

I will really stop and have to consider the next time that I am interested in going to the theater. That is a disappointment to me as I value my memory of the experience. Unfortunately, my memories are not the same as the reality.

In the end, I suggest that you check out The Devil Wears Prada on DVD or on cable. Really a good flick! However, the experience at your movie theater may prove to be a bit more disappointing to that of your living room. Unless you live in San Quentin.

technorati tags:The Devil Wears Prada, Movie, AMC 1000, Movie Studios, Movie Studios Suck, Movie Studios Suck Balls, Movie Studios Suck Balls and make me feel like a criminal, Meryl Streep

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Oh Connie! Oh Connie!

A little bio on Connie Chung for you from Wikipedia:

Chung's network television career has been with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC. Chung was a Washington D.C. based correspondent for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in the early 1970s, during the Watergate political scandal. Later, Chung left for the Los Angeles owned and operated station of CBS, KNXT (now KCBS). Moving to the nation's second largest (and highest paying) local news market, sunny southern California, was a smart career move, since popular local news anchors like KABC's Jerry Dunphy, Christine Lund, and KNBC's Paul Moyer and Kelly Lange and Tritia Toyota were pulling in million-dollar annual salaries.She returned with great fanfare to network news as NBC created a new early program, NBC News at Sunrise, which was scheduled right before the popular Today program. Later, NBC created American Almanac, which she co-hosted with Roger Mudd, after Mudd left the NBC Nightly News, where he co-anchored for two years with Tom Brokaw.Chung left NBC for CBS where she hosted Saturday Night with Connie Chung, and on June 1, 1993, she became the second woman (after Barbara Walters) to co-anchor a major network's national news broadcast (with CBS). After her unsuccessful co-anchoring stint with Dan Rather ended in 1995, Chung jumped to ABC News where she co-hosted 20/20 and began independent interviews—a field which would soon become her trademark.

Connie Chung - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How -- no, really, HOW -- did she go from co-anchoring major network news to this goodbye song. If there was ever a reason for mandated drug tests and psychological examinations, this is it:

technorati tags:Connie Chung, Thanks for the Memories, Horrible, Goodbye

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Boogeyman or Ann Coulter?

Now this is pretty damn funny...

Posted By david | 6/20/2006 3:02 AM
Ann Coulter fun fact #213: If a mother tells her child to finish supper or the boogeyman will get him, the child finishes supper. If she replaces the word "boogeyman" with "Ann Coulter" the child eats the plate too, just to be safe.

from: 2006 Year of the Quitter | 6/20/2006 | mobile jones

technorati tags:Ann Coulter, Boogeyman

Blogged with Flock

Bloglines

You don't realize how much a feed aggregator really saves you time until it breaks!  Bloglines has been bringing up old posts for each of my feeds all day long.  What went from a quick browse through feeds turned into an aggrivating reminder of what life used to be like when I would visit each blog to see if there was an update.  Thank you for the walk down memory lane.  Now please fix it!  :)

technorati tags:Bloglines

Blogged with Flock

Flock, the other white meat

So I have been playing with Flock for a while. When they first opened up the alpha, I was playing with it but realized that its ALPHA state was just a bit too alpha for me. As well, I struggled with why you wouldn't just keep the Firefox codebase and use plugins to achieve the same functionality. In fact, after adding Performancing, I was really happy with Firefox as my blogging tool. However, the new Flock beta is pretty damn nice and I am using it more and more each day. I have fallen for the integrated Flickr stream in addition to the blogging tool.

Fundamentally, I am against the browser being tied directly to individual services, like Flickr. Works out well for me because I am a Flickr fan! However, if I switch to Zooomr, or smugmug, or or or ... I want my browser to work the same way.

Now, that generally fights my personal struggle between enabling the general consumer market and the first adopter market. In this case, complete integration into the browser makes it much easier for the consumer to embrace the new applications. However, requiring the consumer to download plugins rarely works, with exceptions of flash, acrobat, and a few others.

How about that for lack of taking a stand between Flock or Firefox? Hehehehe! For now, I will continue to use both apps.

technorati tags:Flock, Browser, Firefox, Performancing, Flickr, Zooomr

Blogged with Flock

Passage Dedication

One of my favorite art installations for Buring Man was installed this past week on the Embarcadero in San Francisco:  Passage.  It is a beautiful sculture of a mother and child, depicting the transfer of knowledge and experience.  There were flaming footprints illustrating their paths and the mother was passing dripping flames into the child's hand, pooling at their feet.  I stopped by almost every night to experience the installation.

The placement of installation between Pier 14 and the Ferry Building is wonderful.  San Diego decided to give San Francisco its weather for the day: we were in shorts and t-shirts on the water and still sweating!  Amazing!  Fantastic!  Please don't let the fog roll back in!!

Meet the Pengra's

Two weekends ago, I went with Molly up to meet her family, sans mother who is sailing the world, and do some wine tasting.  They are hilarious, kooky, unique, and definitely family.  It is amazing to watch their interactions and see how the relationships have developed over the years.  Families are really all alike...

It is very true

When you turn out the lights and leave cows alone, this does happen. It is true. Very true. Don't leave us alone!

The Party Cow on Vimeo

technorati tags:Party Cow, Lights OUt

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What to title this video?

Perhaps it should be titled, "My most common female responses."  Whatever it is, this is another example why the Japanese absolutely rock.

Haaarrrr....speak like a pirate

Click through to read the entire conversation...it is definitely worth it.  Pretty damn funny!

QDB: Quote #642195

bloodninja: I’ll eat your kitty
sweet17: You’ll what?
bloodninja: You heard me.
bloodninja: I said I’d eat your kitty.
sweet17: I thought you said you couldn’t get it hard after seeing my picture
bloodninja: Do I need a hard-on to eat your kitty?
sweet17: I’d like to know that the man eating me out is excited yes
bloodninja: Well I’m not like most men.
bloodninja: I get excited in different ways.
sweet17: Like what?
bloodninja: Do you really wanna know?
sweet17: I don’t know
bloodninja: You have to tell me yes or no.
sweet17: I’m afraid to
bloodninja: Why?
sweet17: cause
bloodninja: cause why?
sweet17: well lets see
sweet17: you say you have sex with turkeys. You call me fat. then you wanna eat me out
sweet17: doesn’t that seem strange to you?
bloodninja: Nope

We Feel Fine

We Feel Fine
Originally uploaded by thepartycow.

This is one of the most amazing and creative sites I have seen in a long time: We Feel Fine. I have spent the last 20 minutes clicking through to see images and sentences of how people feel. They collect the sentences by spidering blogs and searching for the words "I feel" and "I am feeling." From there, they collect the entire sentence and add it to their database. In addition, they collect demographic information regarding the author so that you can focus in on gender, location, age, weather, and feeling. It is a wonderful journey through the world. Bravo!

Definitely moving to the new server

I have been lazy in moving to my new server.  Linux is installed.  It is almost completely up and running.  Yet, I have held off finishing the final pieces prior to launching.  However, that is coming to a close because of Blogger.

I have not been able to post to Blogger for almost 2 days.  WTF?  I am really, REALLY tired of the downtime.  I am urged to say, "You get what you pay for," but I am moving to Wordpress and am much, much more confident.

Target and copyright releases for photos

Not sure if this is 100% true and hope that the Times fact checking kicked in, but:

Picture This: Common Sense - New York Times

"She told me that because of copyright concerns, Target reserves the right not to sell any picture that appears to be professional. She said, 'Anyone can just download any picture they want, and we'd be liable. I'm sorry, we will not sell you the prints.'

I don't want to think that I have professional photographs, but I do believe that the quality of my shots is pretty damn good. And I do have a handfull of shots that I would say are fantastic. With that in mind, will I be able to print them through Flickr? Jeesh...what a pain!

Wow...not sure how to respond to this

I have been truly riddled as to whether I should justify a post to this as I see her as an absolute idiot that deserves no further attention.  I fear that my linking to this article only propogates her horrible pontifications and provides her yet another soapbox from which to stand. [Though I know that this soap box is only read by my incredible half dozen readers].  I will post the link, though I won't provide her name.

Google Spreadsheet Frustrations

I am enjoying my experience with Google Spreadsheets today as I get a presentation ready for tomorrow.  I have chosen to use this app rather than Excel for a couple of reasons:

• Really wanted to try out the app
• Is not a number crunching, intense spreadsheet
• Is a collaborative spreadsheet to work with my partner on

But the last point is the stickler: I can't work corraboratively with people that are not involved with the Alpha.  DOH!  How do I use the app for working with my business partners if they can't actually log in and use it?  Gliffy had a closed beta, but stressed the importance of group work on documents by opening it to partners you needed to work with.  I see the collaborative nature of Google Spreadsheets as a key differentiator and cannot experience that until my business partners are accepted into the beta.

Another issue I see looming for me: my Google experiences are all tied to my personal email accounts and not my professional.  If I choose to integrate any Google products into my professional workflow later on, I may be stuck having to run separate accounts.

Metaphors are a platform

Read/WriteWeb: Metaphors are a platform

So all in all I like metaphors and think they're very much appropriate for technical subjects. But after a while they seem to outlive their purpose, especially on the Web. That's the danger of statements like 'The Web is a platform', which I am fond of making.

I agree whole heartedly that metaphors ease technical conversations with non-technical parties. Even with technical parties, they can establish a common agreement from which to move forward.

However, I often struggle with metaphors because they are an agreement: each party agrees on the definition of the metaphor without additional substantiation.  I have found that this can lead to great tragedies when each party doesn't fully agree.  What does Web 2.0 mean: AJAX, social applications, mash-ups, api's (or Web Services or HTTP Web Services or Web APIs)  It can be any of them, all of them or more, and this is exacerbated when we address audiences with different backgrounds.  Speaking with a VC regarding Web 2.0 can have a very different meaning than speaking with an advertising agency, media planner, content producer, or entrepreneur.  Without stepping into that agreement, meanings can vary wildly and the challenge to rebuild the conversation can be frustrating.

Metaphors are asynchronous and continually evolve.  Since Cluetrain Manifesto was started in '99, and the book published in 2000, the theses have been used in many different postings, applied to many different ideas, and referenced for many different arguments. Fantastic! However, there is an evolution of the thoughts and they exist at different levels dependent upon where you exist: bleeding edge, cutting edge, early adopter, mass adopter, late adopter, my Father, and finally my Mother. By the time that it has filtered through the different levels, it is tough to ensure that the metaphor is an agreement. To my Mother, the Information Super Highway is just starting to sink in.

I judge the length of my interactions prior to diving into metaphors. It may be counterintuitive, however, the less time I have, the less I use metaphors, as I find that they make additional time for agreement and restrict my ability to communicate what is at hand. It is more powerful to agree on the metaphor and be able to reference it throughout the conversation. However, do I dictate another person's time in agreeing on metaphors for what could be esoteric ideas? Do my Mother and I need to agree on a metaphor prior to us emailing each other? Hell no, she just wants me to email more.

Random with Lady Sovereign

Oh my. I can't believe I haven't heard about this until today. I encourage everyone to visit this site and assist Zach in getting a date with Lady Sovereign. With all of the whining people do for those silly causes like lukemia, aids, and starvation in Africa, we finally have a real cause to support. Damn right!

Make Fire

make fire
Originally uploaded by ekai.

So geeky, so fun! I love it...

Google Heads

There is something horribly wrong with this video....