A co-worker introduced me to this band a couple of months ago. Considering their gimmick, Zombie Surf Camp is incredibly good.
StarCraft 2 bloggage will return this weekend.
. . . [N]o-one of any sense has ever bet against the scorn and resourcefulness of young men.
Jerry “Tycho” Holkins, A Cyclical Argument With A Literal Strawman
Holkins was writing about Ubisoft’s ridiculous new digital rights management scheme, but this principle is just as valid when applied to prohibition of any kind.
Continuing the meme started by Marko, here were the contents of my pockets and belt when I came home this evening:
From top to bottom and left to right:
You can see that I have added a bit since I did this last year. Two things from last year are missing; my Mantis Knives Necessikey was confiscated by TSA on my way to some convention last year and I upgraded my personal cell phone. I bought the Lamy pen partly on Marko’s recommendation with the hope that if I spent a few dollars on a pen and made it my dedicated “carry pen” that it might not go missing like all my cheap disposable pens. So far, so good, as I’ve been carrying it for about a month and it is still handy whenever I need a writing instrument. I bought the iPod mainly because it’s a better music player than my Kindle (for airplanes), and I find that I use it all the time so I consider it money well-spent. The Zippo I purchased mainly because I wanted one. No compelling reason, really.
It’s time for more nerdy music videos. Linoge reminded me of Friday’s xkcd which in turn reminded me of this depressing song about Laika by Jonathan Coulton, who will be playing Scottsdale in a couple of weeks. I’m tempted to go and see him perform, but I’d have to set foot in Scottsdale to do that. I’ll probably just wait until PAX this year. Because flying to Seattle is less painful than driving across the Valley.
Do you wish you could feed your cats from across the world? Well, check this out:
This guy built a pet-feeding device out of a cool machine and an old Cisco switch. The details of how he did it are here. (Via Jeremy)
“KHAAAAAAAAAAN” – James Kirk, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
“The Eagle has landed.” – Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11
“I don’t care, I’m still free, you can’t take the sky from me” – Theme from Firefly
“Yes, it’s true. This man has no dick.” – Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters
What do all these quotes have in common? None of them are on GeekDad’s list of 100 Quotes Every Geek Should Know.
Since I consider this blog to be mostly SFW, there’s a fair warning in the post title.
Anyhow, this post over at The Pervocracy reminded me of this little ditty by MC Frontalot:
Of course, lots of things remind me of nerdy songs.
Lots of bloggers have favorite charities. In the gun blogosphere you’ll often see Soldier’s Angels or The NRA Foundation, which are both excellent programs. Right now, though, I’m going to plug my favorite charity: Child’s Play. Child’s Play was started in 2003 by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade fame.
Child’s Play assists Children’s Hospitals around the country by donating video games, movies, board games, books, and other forms of entertainment to help children keep their minds off the pain and loneliness of extended hospital treatment, similar to what Project Valour-IT does for wounded soldiers. Here’s how it works: each participating hospital sets up an Amazon.com wish list which anyone can use to purchase the items the hospital needs. This is, in my opinion, the one of the best things about the charity. With the Amazon wish lists, I know exactly where my donation is going, because I choose the hospital and buy the items with my own money, and then they get shipped directly to the folks in need. There’s no worry about how much of my donation is being spent on the children, because I decided how the money is spent. Genius! Better still, there are participating hospitals all over the US and Canada, so there’s probably one near you that you can help.
In addition to the wish lists, you can always donate cash at the main site, or at the Desert Bus For Hope fund drive, or if you’re in the Seattle area there’s a pretty sweet charity dinner and auction hosted at the same venue as PAX. All the cash collected (less 2-3% for administrative costs) goes straight into the hospitals.
Head over to the website. Check it out. I dare you to read the letters from grateful children and parents and not contribute.
