Stumbling Around the Internet

So I found this little add-in program called Stumble for Firefox that you tell it some of your interests and then you can click a button and it will take you to a random website related to your interests. It is an amazing way to waste a lot of time. Here is some of what I found…

Here’s one of the videos…

I also highly recommend the Live Action Stop Motion Music Video.

Most of these are just pictures or photo collections, but there are some sites in here that you can really waste some time on. Enjoy!

Photography
The Earth at Night from SpaceA Splash of Color
Niagara Falls from the Sky
A Lot of Cool Pictures
Lightning Strike
Orange Moon
Camels from the Sky (Look VERY closely, this is much cooler than you initially think)
Digital Photography 101
360 Degree View of Mount Everest
Random Good Photos (I’m partial to the kid on the slide… looks scared silly)

Astronomy
Song/Animation about Earth being in Space
Hubble Telescope Site
Center of the Galaxy
A Record in the Sky
Pictures of Space
More Pictures of Space
The Eagle Nebula
Venus and the Moon During the Day
Nova’s The Elegant Universe Home Page
Galactic Collision

Videos
Live Action Stop Motion Music Video
Playing with Fire… A Science Experiment
Head Banging 101
Fun with Stick Figure Physics
Alternative Music Videos (Check out Right Here, Right Now – Fatboy Slim)
Not Really Sure How To Describe This
Microwave Experiment
Mahna Mahna

Random
Ever Think “I wish the movie ended this way?”
Ultra Condensed Movies
Superhero Thanksgiving Wishes
Rules for Men (not Man Laws)
40 Things that Only Happen In Movies
History of Toilet Paper
Hubble & God

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45 Degrees and Sunny

Sound like a forecast for April or October? Yes, but it was also the weather we had today here in Madison, Wisconsin. Not ideal for deer hunting as the meat may spoil, but it worked for what I wanted to do today. It did reach mid-fifties, but 45 is the temperature that matters. You see, I took the boat out to the lake today. Hit the water about 10 am. The weather… blue skies, no wind, and 45 degrees. Can’t ask for a better day at the end of November. I meant to take advantage of it.

The water was still a balmy 41 degrees. I actually expected it to be colder. Put my dry suit on and eased my way into the water. Rope came tight and away we went. Took a pretty good run. Starting at Olin Park and made it along the south shore and then curved up towards the “rock pile” stopping well before it since the buoys had been pulled. Limited myself to one run though. We had turkey dinner scheduled for noon. It would have been nice to go latter in the day, but after eating a Thanksgiving dinner, I was 99% certain I wouldn’t be up for doing much of anything for the rest of the day… other than watch football.

Here’s some pictures from the morning’s adventures…

Ok, the water is cold… we can go any time now…
Really slow deep water start… the driver was a little soft on the throttle.

Look at the glass calm water

Time to stand up

It had been more than a month since I had last footed. Looks like I still know how.

Even did a little one foot

You can come pick me up any time now. The water isn’t getting any warmer.

The Madison Sky Line… I love this city!

Afterwards, dressed nice and warm for the car ride home. With my nephews Ben & Nate.

On a side note… as I was leaving the lake I get a text message from Dale… Cancel turkey dinner and bring the boat… glass calm water. I replied I had just finished a set and was off to dinner.
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Casino Royale

I caught this movie as well. It’s much better than Babel (see my recent rant). I think this movie will be able to resurrect the Bond franchise. The last few movies have kinda been average at best. Too much flash and not enough substance. Big stars, big stories, but nothing behind the glare. It had gone the way of the Batman franchise. But then the Batman franchise was re-invented with Batman Begins. And Casino Royale is the reinvention of Bond.

This one starts out at the beginning. Bond becoming Bond. He’s still coming to grips with being a double-oh. Daniel Craig pulls off a good bond. I was worried when I first saw him cast as Bond. But I’m exited to see next movie.

Overall, the move was very entertaining. Lots of action, good story. My lone complaint was the movie seemed a bit long. It kept ending… and then keep going again.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=9078135433851233052&hl=en
Trailer

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Babel

Unfortunately, I did go see this movie. I had seen the trailer, heard the buzz, and fell for it hook line and sinker. Trailer looked sweet… lots of action, exotic locations, big stars, topical story. Great voice over about the meaning of “babel“. Well, this movie fell short on just about all of those lofty goals. It did have big stars and exotic locations, but that is about it.

Don’t want to know any spoilers, stop reading now… You’ve been warned and probably realize by now that I didn’t like the movie.

Here’s the trailer that sucked me in…
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8100943220822131074&hl=en
Babel Trailer

Now on to the meat of the review. The trailer made the movie look interesting. Terrorist attach on some tourists, face paced editing, multiple stories all converging. But in truth, the pacing was slow, it had multiple stories, but for all the interest they generated, the could have just focused on the one main story. The others didn’t really add anything to it.

The stories in tiny little nutshell…
Tourist shot and it’s possible a terrorist attack.
Dysfunctional girl in Japan wants to “grow up”. Dads too busy to notice.
Housekeeper/nanny’s son is getting married in Mexico.

In the end, all the stories are tied to together, but in truth, they didn’t really add up to much. I was sorely disappointed.

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The Tour

No, I’m not talking about that tour, but the Tour De Franzia. Franzia as in the boxed wine. Last weekend I witnessed some of the most self destructive behavior I’ve seen, and boy was it fun.

67 people participated in the tour on teams of 9 or 10 people each. The competition started with each team being issued three eggs that needed to survive the trip to the finish line. The first challenge for each team consisted of finishing off 3 giant pixie sticks. Then they had to drink a 5 liter box of white wine and each team member had to then draw a turkey hand. As they left their house, they had the choice of transporting 100 pounds of water already in container, 50 pounds of sand that needed to put into a container, 50 pounds of salt that needed to put into a container, rocks and bowling pins, popcorn, leaves, a limp person or put someone into a rolling trash can and make their way to the next house. Meanwhile, 3 members would be blind folded and would need to be led to the next house. The next house was 12 to 15 blocks away… I’m not completely sure.

At the second house, they needed to show their hand turkeys to gain admission to the house and could start drinking their 5 liter box of red wine. Anytime someone yelled shenanigans whoever was standing needed to sit and vice versa. They then had to use 3 rolls of TP to turn someone into a mummy. On their way to the 3rd house, four members had to be skipping at all times while another member was being dragged on a sled. The sleds I saw looked like garbage can lids and there was no snow on the ground.

At the third house they had to present their eggs, eat a block of cheese (roughly the size of a brick) without their hands and then drink a 5 liter box of blush wine. First team done would win.

There were some other rules as well…. spill any wine, they had to drink the amount spilled in liquor. Each racer received one free puke, after that puke, they had to do a shot for each additional puke. Their could be no self induced puking. Spill water, sand, popcorn, leaves, do a shot. Break an egg, do a shot.

The also had rules about general safety. for crossing streets, staying together in groups for the girls (and guys who weren’t any bigger than girls.) The final rule… Don’t drink so much that you die. Coming close is fine, but no hospitals.

Needless to say, this was hilarious to watch. They spent 45 minutes explaining the rules that were typed up on 4 pages and color coded for quick reference for a competition that lasted less than 30 minutes for the victorious team. Each team had a judge to ensure that the teams completed each task to its completion. Each house had a judge to oversee everything. They had people running around video taping and photographing it for prosperity. Well organized and well thought up chaos. As the competition finished up, pretty much everyone involved was puking after their team completed. I’ve never seen so many people puking at the same time.

I by no means recommend doing this and I have no plans to do this myself. Each team consumed 15 liters of wine and I guess the typical bottle is 750 ml which amounts to about 2 bottles per person in about 30 minutes. That’s a consumption rate of 4 bottle per hour. You can get drunk on 4 drinks an hour.

Once again, very fun to watch.

One last comment… when I told my roommate about this, she did comment that they did have more really drunk people than normal show up at the hospital that night. Wonder if it is a correlation?

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Stranger than Fiction

Another week, another new movie. Yes, I managed to catch Stranger than Fiction on Friday. Previews looked good going in. I kinda figured it wasn’t go to be a comedy, like Will Ferrell’s work so far, but I thought it looked promising.

I was right. The movie is a drama, but with lots of laughs. Will’s characters lives a monotonous life until one day he starts hearing a voice in his head. It’s female with an accent, and as he puts it, uses a better vocabulary. Things then get interesting. He goes to meet a literature expert, played by Dustin Hoffman who starts off trying to diagnose Will’s character as having the same thing as Rain Man (can’t think of the right term, so I won’t use any). He eventually comes around to the idea that yes, this guy does have someone narrating his life and tries to help him.

I’ll stop right there and leave it up to you to go see the rest of the story. I thought the movie was great and will probably be in some discussions for some acting awards for Ferrell. He pulls off his character that well.

Go check it out.

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7 Answers

If you click on the link, it says “7 Answers” at the top. It was enough to make me read on…
1) I never realized 7 was Blonde, he’s been hiding it well…
2) The answers mention water skiing, so it has to be reposted.

A Blonde Year in Review

January-Took new scarf back to store because it was too tight

February-Fired from pharmacy job for failing to print labels… Helllooo!! …bottles won’t fit in typewriter!

March-Got really excited…finished jigsaw puzzle in 6 months …box said “2-4 years!”

April-Trapped on the Macy’s escalator for hours after the power went out!

May-Tried to make Kool-Aid…wrong instructions…8 cups of
water won’t fit into those little packets!

June-Tried to go water skiing…couldn’t find a lake with a slope.

July-Lost breast stroke swimming competition. Learned later,
the other swimmers cheated, they used their arms!

August-Got locked out of my car in rain storm-car swamped
because soft-top was open.

September-The capital of California is “C”…isn’t it?

October-Hate M&M’s..they are so hard to peel

November-Baked turkey for 4 1/2 days…instructions said 1 hour
per pound and I weigh 108!

December-Couldn’t call 911…”duh .there’s no “eleven” button
on the stupid phone!

What a year!!!

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Saw III

How to start this review of Saw III… I guess my first comment will be is that I found parts of this movie to be difficult to watch. What I mean by that is in a way that parts of the Passion of the Christ were difficult to watch, so were parts of this movie. (This is the only way these two movies are similar.) For some, the scenes may not bother them, but they did bother me. But then, I have a difficult time watching ER on occasion. With that said, I had a feeling there could be parts like that, they weren’t unexpected.

Now on to the meet of the story. And yes, this movie, unlike the typical horror movie, has a plot, or connecting story. The way it started, I was worried. It seemed to be going down the path that I though Saw II followed… which was creative ways to get people to kill or maim themselves. But then the story started coming together, much like the original Saw, and in the end, I can honestly say I enjoyed the story. And I do mean story.

For those of you that are fans of the first Saw, of which I am, you should definitely enjoy this movie. And those of you that just want a good horror movie, you’re in luck to. It isn’t going to stand up to the likes of The Prestige or The Departed (two very good and recent movies) but, nonetheless, a good horror movie.

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