Friday, October 29, 2010

Lasagna rules


Erin made Lasagna tonight. There's no other content to this post other than that delicious picture above.

Happy Friday! now off to watch Eurotrip.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Wifey made cookies!

Chocolate cookies with orange frosting

No they're not for me... stupid work halloween party cookies...

One of the best beers I've ever tasted


Just bought a 6'er of this, absolutely unbelievable.

Explaining the internet to a 19th century street urchin

source -> http://www.fastcompany.com/1697711/explain-the-internet-19th-century-british-street-urchin-doogie-horner#self

click the pic below to expand it (unless you have superhuman eyesight, if so hats off to you)


I feel like I've had this conversation explaining things...recently.

holy crap!



"Nom Nom Nom"

Yes that is a bear chasing a bison down a public road


Update! -> http://www.krtv.com/news/grizzly-versus-bison-the-rest-of-the-story/?ref=nf

Apparently the Bison had been burned by a hot spring when the bear began the chase. It was later euthanized by park rangers due to its sustained injuries.

Halloween was fun when i was 12...

The Wall Street Journal 

Source -> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304915104575572642896563902.html#printMode

'Stranger Danger' and the Decline of Halloween

No child has ever been killed by poisoned candy. Ever.

"Granola?!"
Halloween is the day when America market-tests parental paranoia. If a new fear flies on Halloween, it's probably going to catch on the rest of the year, too.
Take "stranger danger," the classic Halloween horror. Even when I was a kid, back in the "Bewitched" and "Brady Bunch" costume era, parents were already worried about neighbors poisoning candy. Sure, the folks down the street might smile and wave the rest of the year, but apparently they were just biding their time before stuffing us silly with strychnine-laced Smarties.
That was a wacky idea, but we bought it. We still buy it, even though Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, has researched the topic and spends every October telling the press that there has never been a single case of any child being killed by a stranger's Halloween candy. (Oh, yes, he concedes, there was once a Texas boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix. But his dad did it for the insurance money. He was executed.)
Anyway, you'd think that word would get out: poisoned candy not happening. But instead, most Halloween articles to this day tell parents to feed children a big meal before they go trick-or-treating, so they won't be tempted to eat any candy before bringing it home for inspection. As if being full has ever stopped any kid from eating free candy!
So stranger danger is still going strong, and it's even spread beyond Halloween to the rest of the year. Now parents consider their neighbors potential killers all year round. That's why they don't let their kids play on the lawn, or wait alone for the school bus: "You never know!" The psycho-next-door fear went viral.
Then along came new fears. Parents are warned annually not to let their children wear costumes that are too tight—those could seriously restrict breathing! But not too loose either—kids could trip! Fall! Die!
Treating parents like idiots who couldn't possibly notice that their kid is turning blue or falling on his face might seem like a losing proposition, but it caught on too.
Halloween taught marketers that parents are willing to be warned about anything, no matter how preposterous, and then they're willing to be sold whatever solutions the market can come up with. Face paint so no mask will obscure a child's vision. Purell, so no child touches a germ. And the biggest boondoggle of all: an adult-supervised party, so no child encounters anything exciting, er, "dangerous."
Think of how Halloween used to be the one day of the year when gaggles of kids took to the streets by themselves—at night even. Big fun! Low cost! But once the party moved inside, to keep kids safe from the nonexistent poisoners, in came all the nonsense. The battery-operated caskets. The hired witch. The Costco veggie trays and plastic everything else. Halloween went from hobo holiday to $6 billion extravaganza.
And it blazed the way for adult-supervised everything else. Let kids make their own fun? Not anymore! Let's sign our toddlers up for "movement" classes! Let's bring on the extracurricular activities, travel soccer and manicure parties for the older kids. Once Halloween got outsourced to adults, no kids-only activity was safe. Goodbye sandlot, hello batting coach!
And now comes the latest Halloween terror: Across the country, cities and states are passing waves of laws preventing registered sex offenders from leaving their homes—or sometimes even turning on their lights—on Halloween.
The reason? Same old same old: safety. As a panel of "experts" on the "Today" show warned viewers recently: Don't let your children trick-or-treat without you "any earlier than [age] 13, because people put on masks, they put on disguises, and there are still people who do bad things."
Perhaps there are. But Elizabeth Letourneau, an associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, studied crime statistics from 30 states and found, "There is zero evidence to support the idea that Halloween is a dangerous date for children in terms of child molestation."
In fact, she says, "We almost called this paper, 'Halloween: The Safest Day of the Year,' because it was just so incredibly rare to see anything happen on that day."
Why is it so safe? Because despite our mounting fears and apoplectic media, it is still the day that many of us, of all ages, go outside. We knock on doors. We meet each other. And all that giving and taking and trick-or-treating is building the very thing that keeps us safe: community.
We can kill off Halloween, or we can accept that it isn't dangerous and give it back to the kids. Then maybe we can start giving them back the rest of their childhoods, too.
Ms. Skenazy is the author of "Free-Range Kids" (Jossey-Bass, 2010). 




Amazon product reviews...

Actual products, maybe not so accurate "reviews"

my friend Mike sent me this one make sure to read the reviews and Customer Images

using this will cause...




this

(a few more funny older ones HERE and HERE)

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

South Park - Captain Hindsight! (full episode online)

One of the most witty shows on TV. If you don't agree, you probably haven't actually seen an entire episode!

Update to the $500 rally car->Baja truck conversion



He's got about 2 weeks until the race and is currently welding the support frame/rollcage at a tradeshow in Vegas. The plan of his is to convert what started as an '88 BMW 318i into a desert buggy running 33" tires and what looks like half-shaft portal-esque axles with custom coilover suspension for long travel. Powerwise-wise he's sticking with the '95 M3 sourced inline-6.

Welding @ the Miller booth at the SEMA show in Vegas

source -> http://jalopnik.com/5681523/the-bmw-e30-craigslist-baja-car-does-sema
_________
Original Post:



a few months back a guy from Chicago bought a junker early 90's BMW 318i and shoehorned a big motor in it...

Even if you're not into cars, motorsport, etc this is pretty cool. His name is Bill Caswell and decided that he wanted to be a race car driver, with no team, no sponsors and a cheap car.

Click here if you'd like to catch up to the story thus far

Now he's eyeing for a BIG race (still in the car that he bought off Craigslist) the Baja 1000 in the Mexican desert. He's currently converting his 318i bodied rally car into a Desert vehicle.

This guy really is an inspriation to other enthusiasts like myself. I would LOVE to do something like this someday. GO TEAM CASWELL!

His official site

Great Land Rover Defender ad...

Now why can't we buy these here again? Oh right, there are too many Explorers too sell first...
I love this comic, its both wildly inappropriate and simultaneously low and high brow (most of the time).

Enjoy!

Cyanide and Happiness, a daily webcomic
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/pearls-before-swine - I'm a fan of Rat... Erin prefer's Pig's blissful ignorance.


This is why simple cars are awesome

Actual craigslist ad for a '67 Merc in Canada

content below just in case it gets taken down... (Thanks Jalopnik)

1967 Mercedes 250S - $900 (Victoria) Four speed manual transmission, engine was swapped for a 2.8L. Comes with several boxes of extra parts, and a spare set of wheels with studded snow tires. This car is driveable but the alternator output is weak. Requires a couple minutes to warm up in the morning. Shifter is loose and the gears are a little tricky to find. You have to stand on the clutch to shift gears. This is really a parts car - unless you truely want a project.
This Mercedes has no seatbelts in the back, and the ones in the front are of the airliner lap-best variety. There are safer cars out there for sale. Cars with thick slab like steel pillars cocooning you from the outside world. Cars with 7 airbags. Cars with airbags for your knees. They have fancy GPSs that will tell you where you should go; they have systems that will brake for you, before you even notice that the car in front of you is slowing down.
This Mercedes has none of those things. This Mercedes barely even has brakes. This Mercedes doesn't even have a conventionally operational heating system, or a radio. There are no power windows, locks, or mirrors. This car does not have seven airbags.
And those other cars, Their horns make cute little beeping noises, so considerate to not be rude. They don't have horns that sound with the arrogance and fury of some long dead Mongol warlord. They don't come with apocalyptic snow tires, all spikes and brutal tread. You cannot fix those cars on the side of the road, using a wrench as a hammer. Those cars will never force you to think, never allow you to exercise your own ingenuity. In those cars you can't stand up illegally through the sunroof from the back seat, and watch the moon with the cool night air blowing through you air.
This Craigslist Ad Is Actually Commentary On Modern Existence
Richard Nixon once said "Human existence is in the struggle." You could buy a car that will try and hide you from all the dangers of the world, but it won't save you; all the alarms, all the air bags, and the low sodium lattes in the world won't save you. Some day you will die. But at least you can die with the wind in your hair.
Alternatively it would make a good parts car.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Cool article about butchers and buying meat -> http://www.gilt.com/manual/2010/10/hot-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-butcher/

First post!

I've decided to finally join the trend (first Facebook, then twitter now... blogging?) for a few reasons.

A) first and foremost its to more passively share links. I feel bad innodating friends with buzz posts, facebook posts, emails, BBM, gchat... now you can come to ME.

2) I find myself trying to always have a central place to archive and share things I find in a better way than bookmarks and just trying to remember.

D) There is a lot of crap on the internet (IMO) and I constantly say "I could do that", so now I am.


I'm probably going to have little to no theme, both in content and physical layout, for a while, and I frequently interrupt myself (with parentheses like these) because my mind is all over the place, so be please be patient...
Also, I'll do my best to keep it works safe(-ish) but no guarantees.

The first thing I'll share today is the new OK Go video sent to me by wifey. It features dogs being awesome (that should be enough to click).

enjoy! (Safe for work) - New OK Go video with awesome dogs