There's No News, Boys, so Go Out There and Make Some News.

Well, I'm not really feeling it tonight, and don't really have a particular theme to cook on... just some odds and ends, really, since today was pretty much completely uneventful, and even with my perchant for wackiness, I don't think I could spruce it up enough to make it readworthy. So here are some end-of-the-week scraps some of you might find interesting.

First: Let me officially say that I respectfully withdraw my recommendation of the PostSecret site I featured a couple days ago, since, sure enough, after I recommended it, they had to go and post up a bunch of offensive stuff. I apologize to anyone that went there on my recommendation and were taken aback by what they saw. I'll try to heed my inner warning system a little better in the future. I was hesitatnt to recommend it, but thought the concept was strong and interesting enough to go ahead with it. I'm sorry.

Next: I've never been one who's been that into Rubic's Cubes... I can solve one side, that's it. I've always held a certain amount of admiration for those that can solve them, however. Now, I've seen variations on the cube before, but this is ridiculous...


Behold, the Magic GIANT 12-Surface IQ Pentagon - Fantastic Edition! You'd think they could come up with a more concise name for it, but that's what it's called. Here's the link if you'd like to check it out yourself. If you get one, take a video of yourself messing around with it, post it on YouTube and I'll embed it here. If you go to that link, you can see a couple dozen other Rubic's Cube variations... I used to have this one as a lad... called a Rubic's Magic Folding Puzzle...

The main challenge was to turn this:

... into this...

... and/or back again. Now, this one I was good at. In fact, I remember figuring out the trick to solving it after many hours of experimentation and got to where I could solve it, eyes closed, in a few seconds.... man, I wonder whatever happened to that thing? I should get another one...

Next: I don't know how many of you - 0r if any - have played Half-Life 2, but it's a great game... I finally realized that after my third attempt to play it through. It really is a great game. Anyway, a guy calling himself Trase has made a mod for it that replaces all the sound effects in the game with recordings of himself making the same sounds with his mouth. It's called Trase's MyVoice Sounds Patch, and here's a video sample...



You certainly don't have to watch much of it to get the gist... in fact, the clip is really too long... the quirky coolness factor maintains for a pair of minutes or so... Amusing concept... can't imagine playing the whole game like that though... but props for originality...

I watched a movie tonight called "Good Night and Good Luck" which you might remember vaguely... really, it's a movie worthy of vague remembrance only, even though it got a handful of nominations from the Academy, Golden Globes, BAFTA, etc in 2006. It covered the battle (if you will) between Edward R. Murrow and Senator McCarthy back during the Commie witchhunts in the 50's. As you can imagine, it's pretty one-sided in its message, but I knew that going in. I was hoping to see some great acting. What I saw instead was quite forgettable, in spite of the near-universal accolades. So, why am I bringing it up here, you ask? Fodder, my friend! Fodder! The Trailer. The Rotten Tomatoes page.

Now, don't go falling asleep on me now... here, this will wake you up... turn your speakers up for a second...

There you go...

OK, one Funny Picture and I'm outta here...


Gonna go read into the wee hours, then get up, drop Eldest off at work in the morning, then dive into the Rug Care Central website. Got lots of plans and lots of content.

Until tomorrow, good night, and good luck.