Luckier than a monkey with a fist full of gold.

Four years!




Damn right.

Motherf...

This is why I wanted a robot.

I said, "Hey, I want a robot. Preferably a piratey one."

But none of you listened. Not a god-damned one of you.

I also said, "Hey, I want an island...wouldn't that be fun?"

But no.

"Think how hard it would be - living on an island."

That's what you all said.

Well.

If, after you've donated, you have $50K sitting around...

Then I want this:



Why?

Because that's the fire of burning water.

Yeah, it's a hydrogen-burning fireplace. All you need is tap water, and BLAM, the Aqueon splits it into hydrogen and oxygen, and sets that shit on FIRE.

And just in case you think I haven't done my research, this isn't the first example of someone making fire out of water. It's just the most expensive.

Also check out the prettier making fire from ice.

Donate, bitches.

Go donate here:



Because as much as all the people in the South need our help, the animals need even more.

Remember, they didn't vote for the fucker, we did.

I'm on the cutting edge!

So, a few weeks ago, Agent Em and I went on a hiking trip on Catalina Island. It was pretty sweet.

Hiking 7 miles with a 40 pound pack on your back is a great way to break up the monotony of sitting around, and since every ounce of weight feels exponentially heavier with each quarter mile, you don't tend to have the luxury of an iPod. Those little suckers are heavy. Not to mention - it would be pretty contrary to the idea of hiking to go plugging-in on the trail. Point-being, you talk a lot when you hike.

Anyway, somewhere along the way - Em and I started talking about a widget. Basically inventing-while-hiking. Nothing like a little bit of spatial-reasoning to spice up the trail!

This widget is pretty great - no, I'm not going to tell you what it is, there's a long tradition of paranoid inventors and there's probably a law that says if you talk about something in a public forum before you patent it, it becomes public domain and you get nothing. Nothing!

So I start wondering how to go about making this widget. It's pretty simple. It could be plastic or metal. But how do you get it out of your head? As it turns out; while you're camping, you can't.

Once home, I drew out a cross section of said-widget. I figured that the first thing to do was to make a diagram. Then I realized that some sort of 3D drawing program would allow me to virtually 'build' a widget. I vaguely know how to use these types of programs, so I set about finding a free CAD/CAM design-a-widget program to download.

What I found rocked me socks off.

emachineshop.com is a company that provides a very intuitive 3D modeling program for free. But they take it a step further. Once you design a thing, you can click on a button and ORDER it. Just like that. Out of any material that's compatible with your design - and they have a whole list of materials, from different grades and colors of aluminum to teak to Pyrex.

The prices are pretty reasonable too. If you want one of your pieces, it's going to be a little pricey. But the cost drops drastically as you order in volume.

So, YESTERDAY, I get me fresh new copy of WIRED magazine only to discover an entire article about the startling trend of personalized fabrication and surprise surprise, the author uses emachineshop.com to produce a clear, Lexan body for his new electric guitar prototype.

I don't know about you, but I geek out knowing that through my own devices, I discovered something radass that goes on to grace the pages of WIRED.

But then, that's me.

A great article on my recent obsession.

I'll admit it...I'm a big fat geek.

I recently got sucked into two online role-playing games. I got sucked in so hard you could hear the slurping sound from miles away.

The first game is one that I've laready blogged about: Puzzle Pirates.

It's a cute and addictive blend of Lego dudes and Tetris style puzzle games, wrapped neatly in a silly pirate-themed world. Even though the graphics are cutesy and low-end compared to other games - one thing stands out - the community. The problem with most games is that the people who typically play them are angst-riddled teens who get off by spouting interweb slang and bullying n00bs. Puzzle Pirate's pacing is slow and when you have a swordfight, there's no blood. So you end up with players who are all mostly of a certain maturity level - they have patience. They all fully understand that it's both silly and fun to use piratey-speak - and they do so with gusto.


The second game is World of Warcraft.

Now, World of Warcraft is superficially, what you expect when someone tells you that thy play online role-playing games. It's based in the fantasy Dungeons and Dragons world. It's populated heavily with aggro-teens. It's got elves.

As of a few weeks ago, World of Wacraft has over 3 million players. That's a larger population than many countries. The in-game currency is worth more than many Real Life currencies. In fact, there have been a few articles about sweat-shops in third-world countries where all they do is play World of Warcraft for 24 hours a day and make a better living at it than making Nike shoes. And it's probably a lot less annoying too.

World of Warcraft (WoW) is kind of amazing at the level of depth it has. There are guilds to join, professions to learn. I spent several days running around battlefields after people had killed a bunch of beasts. I didn't kill anything, I just ran around to the corpses of animals and skinned them. Skinned them for the leather, which I then sold at the auction house to other players who are tailors. Tailors make things like pants and bags. bags are useful because they let you carry more loot.

It's stunning to me that all the technology of the new Millenium has amounted to me finally being able to live the fantasy of being a backwoods trapper. And a priest. Thanks to Progress, I can pretend to live in poverty and virtually master skills that were actually being used 100 years ago. You can train to be a blacksmith too.

There's another game that I haven't touched yet called, appropriately, Second Life.
Second Life isn't really a game. There's no story. You do what you want. It is, in effect, the very first 'metaverse'.

Agent Em and I have had a few conversations about how interesting it is that there are these pseudo-realities starting to spring up. They blur the borders of what's real and what's not...I mean, if you can make 'real' money playing these 'games', and you develop unique skills that distinguish you from other players...if you can own property, create products and interact with others...how 'virtual' is it??

Everyone I tell about this laughs and me and smirks a lot about how I'm some jerk who should get a job and stop messing around. They smile patiently.

Well, read this, bitches:

How MMORPG'S will change the world.

What's for dinner?

Hopefully, God willing,

THIS



And before you go and get all huffy on me claiming that Spam isn't food - rest assured that I could have hoped for this.

It's pirate themed, afterall. And adding food coloring is optional...

Further Proof That My Cats Are Lazy Little Punks.

I knew $8 was too cheap for a quality cat. Look at what this cat does in his spare time:


My Cats are effing slackers. Look at this...