Ask A Ninja!

In case you've forgotten about AskANinja.com, you should go check it out.

Some personal favorite quotes from the last two clips:

Q:As a ninja, what would you never say in a job interview?

A:Ninja's don't speak in job interviews. If I'm at a job interview, I'm either there to kill the interviewer, or the interviewee. I usually hide behind the stapler and strike during the 'Where do you see yourself in five years?' question, because I like the irony.

Q:How many ninjas does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A:None! It was ninjas that killed your old light bulb in the first place!

Q:I want to ask this girl out, but I don't know if she likes me. Do you have any ninja tips?

A: A lot of girls like men who are like their father. So, by that logic, ask her mom out. If she says yes, you've got a pretty good chance.

Wrong on so many levels.

I just read a press release about a guy offering to rent your soul from you for $10 a week.

Wow.

Pierre Ayotte, noted in his press release as a "friendly upcoming Internet opportunist"--i.e. not The Devil Himself, just to be clear--would like to rent your soul for ten bucks a week.

...

[Many people consider selling their souls]. Instead of skirting the fiery pit of eternal damnation, why not simply rent your soul for a good cause?

...

What's the risk? It's an asset almost all of us possess, and chances are, you're not using yours anyway.

Emo kid on YouTube

We had a costume contest at work today. Here was my favorite entry:

Emo kid on YouTube!

Quote of the day

And yet, there I was. One little man on a flimsy little train (and I even still had a baby tooth to lose at the time) out of billions of people living on a floating blue rock. How can I knock Ruby? Who’s to say that I’m not going to happen to choke on my cell phone and die later that evening. Why’s dead, Ruby lives on.

The gravestone:

What’s in his trachea? Oh, look, a Nokia!

From here.

Quote of the day

On slashdot, a conversation thread drifted onto pillow shams. Someone pointed out that no-one on slashdot would possibly know what a pillow sham is, and earned this response:

What is a pillow sham? Women know. When you find one who moves in, you will soon learn. You will also learn about the pillows that you aren't supposed to use for sleeping, and the blanket that sits on the foot of the bed, only to be removed at bedtime and replaced the next morning. You will learn about towels that nobody except for "guests" may use. Ditto plates and silverware. Occasionally, candles will fall into this category.

Made me laugh.

Ending to portal theme song!

For those of you who haven't beat Portal yet, this is a spoiler. If you care about that sort of thing, you should go away.

Still here? Good.

The ending song in Portal is nine kinds of awesome. Someone captured it and posted it on YouTube. Behold!



If you haven't played the game, you could use a few interpretations to enjoy the song:

- You have a neat gun that makes warp portals. You shoot them onto the walls, walk in one end, and pop out the other side.

- You use this neat gun to complete potentially lethal rat-maze style puzzles. Throughout the game you get the impression that you are just another in a long line of prisoners.

- The maze is being administrated by an (literally) insane computer, who assures you that at the end of the puzzles you'll be rewarded with 'cake'. Occasionally you'll find graffiti on the wall saying 'The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!'.

- When you complete the last puzzle, you don't get cake. Instead, the computer tries to feed you into a blast furnace. You manage to escape, find the computer, and destroy it. The facility explodes, you black out while flying toward the ceiling, and briefly regain consciousness under a clear blue sky, with debris raining from the heavens. Then the game plays you this song.

Update: I just found out that this song was written by Jonathan Coulton!

AOL cuts 2000 employees

AOL announced that it would cut 2000 additional jobs yesterday. I can't say that I'm sad to see AOL go, because of all the war stories that I hear (and once experienced) about the insane hassle they make it to actually cancel their service ("When I say cancel the account, I don't mean help me figure out how to keep the account"). Someone on slashdot presented this scenario:

AOL's trained its employees too well.

Boss: You're fired!

Employee: Sorry, AOL employees only accept termination notices between the hours of 1:13am and 1:16am, Ugandan time. Please call back at this deliberately inconvenient time. Until then, we will continue to bill you for our services.

Boss [several hours later]: OK, now you're fired!

Employee: Sorry, please hold.

Boss [several hours later]: Look, you're freaking fired!

Employee: OK, I'm going to sign you up for one more month of free employment.

Boss: I don't want a month's free employment, you're freaking fired, you stupid cretins!

Employee: I'm sorry, we accidentally disconnected that call. Please begin the process again.

Management may want to fire them. If the employees have learned anything from their time working there, it'll be next to impossible to make them actually leave.

Quote of the day

So, EA Games just bought Bioware/Pandemic for $620 million dollars. You may recognize them from titles like Knights of the Old Republic, or Mercenaries 1 & 2. EA games hasn't been doing so hot lately, so a lot of people think that they were pretty stupid to allow themselves to be bought. One guy on Slashdot responded to that with:

I'm sure they are feeling none too smart... them and their HALF A BILLION DOLLARS.

Heres hoping that Bioware/Pandemic get to keep enough creative freedom that their quality doesn't drop.

Comment moderation now disabled.

So, a few weeks ago I checked this box that said 'Enable Comment Moderation'. What that box should have said was 'Forbid others from talking without your explicit permission'.

I just turned it off. You should see comments appear as soon as you press the submit button.

With great power comes great responsibility, and all that. My Mom reads my blog, don't say anything I'll regret.

Quote of the day

Someone brought in cupcakes to work, and sent in an email inviting us to come eat them. From the email:

Joe turned 2 earlier this week, and I have a few cupcakes left over from his party at daycare...Even though the icing got a little mangled by the foil cover, the only cupcakes handled by children were already devoured.

It made me laugh.

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Avast, ye dogs! The fabled time be upon us - Talk Like A Pirate day! Fer those of ye what be a little thin in ye rigging, we be displaying this fine instructional video.

Robert Jordan Dies

Robert Jordan died last Sunday (September 16th, 2007). Looks like he was only part-way through the last book in the Wheel of Time, so who knows what's going to happen with it.

Slashdot article here.

They Call The Wind Moriah

We're almost certainly naming the right twin Moriah. Or...maybe Mariah, it's still up in the air.

Quote of the Day

Who cares about realism? If I wanted realism I'd play outside.

Gleaned that little beauty from the forums for the Source mod Fortress Forever, where someone was whining that the Heavy Weapons Guy's gun can overheat.

Fortress Forever is pretty spiffy. I'll do a writeup in a day or two.

Babies!

Shauna and I had another ultrasound today. Looks like we're going to have twin girls! Since our household currently consists of me, my wife, and a (spayed) cat, I guess means that I'll be the lone male holding back the tide of estrogen. If my masculinity wavers I guess I could go buy some power-tools or something.