Last time I left you with my new favorite blog, Passive Agressive Notes. Well they have a nice rundown of a household post-it war that escalates nicely.
Speaking of escalating nicely, you might get a kick out of this short take on invasive advertising, particularly the kind that's popping up all over video games.
Video games can make stuff funnier! You might have seen the clip of a breakdancer kicking a baby. Well, it's funnier when you add in sound effects from Street Fighter II. Is it wrong that I love watching children get injured? Is it even more wrong that I created a 'kidsgettinghurt' folder on my del.icio.us account, a decision that implies I intend to find more movies of injury to children?
Speaking of kids, if you think kids these days just don't play outside enough, you may be right, as that article highlights how the distance parents let their kids wander has shrunk from miles to backyards.
That's such a drastic loss that I almost wish there was an easy tool to make ridiculous unit conversions. Oh, wait, there is. It can tell you that I weigh roughly .15 whale testicles and I am .222 (repeating, of course) Oscar Mayer Weinermobiles tall.
Men have weiners, and any man in the audience can probably appreciate Big Daddy Drew's Father's Day plans. Yeah, this is late, but the cologne that smells like gunpowder kills me every time. Badass.
Speaking of badass, the new Die Hard movie is pretty good. But I don't think it'll be as good as Ben Stiller's classic parody of the franchise. Remember when he was funny? Before he did crappy cartoons?
Speaking of cartoons, go see Ratatouille now. I can't say enough nice things about it. I would rate it as just as good as Incredibles but not quite as good as Finding Nemo or Monsters, Inc., one of my favorite movies ever, as I've illustrated with this graph:
That looks harsh, until you realize it's out of scale compared to all other children's movies:
While I'm at it, Slate also had a nice slideshow about the excellence that is Brad Bird. It takes a special director to make soup preparation utterly thrilling -- by a rat, no less! If I had my way, Remy the Rat would take Mickey's place as the icon of Disney. Though I don't think that would work out. Walt Disney was a sexist asshole. But we already knew that. Remy the Rat is too nice to be such a dick.
Speaking of things that can carry disease, you all should also go see Sicko. It's easily Moore's best since Roger & Me and he blessedly stays the hell out of the way, letting other people who have been screwed by the insurance industry do the talking. It's brilliant, tragic, hilarious, and infuriating, and you can watch it (the whole thing!) for free (legally, even!) right here. So you have no excuse. Only people who hate Michael Moore on principle can hate this movie. While his proposed solution is far from perfect and doesn't hit on everything, goddamn is the movie powerful.
Speaking of powerful, if you're a GMail convert (If you aren't on Gmail and want an invite, leave a comment and I'll fix you up), you can consolidate all your disparate emails into Gmail (including having Gmail send outgoing replies "from" the address that received it) to have all your email in one place. This is especially handy if you have to use a bunch of different addresses and mail clients for pleasure, school, and work emails and want them all in one place. Saucy.
Speaking of saucy, I want an iPhone really bad... as soon as it holds as much music as full-size iPods and isn't on the tin-cans-and-string cellular network. Those commercials lie!, but I admit they make me chuckle (and the girls in those spots are pretty hawt ... man I'm pathetic).
Speaking of pathetic, have you ever stumbled on a car taking up more than their fair share of the parking lot? Well, Youparklikeanasshole is the most fun way to rat them out. It even has notices you can print out and leave on offending cars. Probably don't want to do it if the driver can see you. Caveat emptor.
Speaking of cars, this blog post runs down some incredible car commercials, including the infamous Honda "Cog" spot, the grocery parking lot defense, and this incredible Honda spot that I hadn't seen before.
Still on cars, Consumerist posted a very thorough essay that explains why gas is so expensive. Summary: it's not the gas station's fault; it's every other step in the process that is actively out to screw you. Maybe it's time to go back to walking or public transport.
Speaking of traveling, if you're heading home for the holiday, you might want to look into this tutorial and this one about how to get your parents' computer free of ad-, mal-, and spy-ware. If your parents are like mine, their compys will need it. Badly. Stop using Internet Explorer for heaven's sake!
If you must drive on your trip back home, you should fire up some Pearl Jam on the iPod and try to figure out the lyrics to "Yellow Ledbetter".
You should also pack some maps, and you can find a ton of insane ones on this blog. Be sure you have a lot of time to waste, since there's tons of cool stuff on there, including a clever visual of online communities and a very compelling reason to study the cartography of Hannover.
While we're talking about graphical abstractions and wastes of time, you can lose hours in the "Stick Figures in Peril" photostream. Lots of funny ones, although I have yet to see the infamous "Beware Flying Bats and Balls" sign that has a stick figure getting whacked with a baseball... but this one is close. (It might have been caused by Jedi Baseball.)
Speaking of safety, if you're listing something to sell on Craigslist and don't want to put your phone number on the greater Intertubes, use this service to create a free forwarding number to keep your real number private. I also found a nifty way to keep your laptop private with a relatively inconspicuous FedEx envelope.
While you're on Craigslist, if you need to airbrush your picture for your personal ad (and you have Photoshop, natch), this tutorial can show you how in a ridiculous amount of detail. This should also show you how to never trust any picture you find online ever. You might find yourself with someone like this toothless harpy and end up on FOX reality television programming.
Speaking of things the cat wouldn't drag in -- I know... I'm reaching -- well, I don't want to spoil it, so just watch the video. If you get anything from this post, make it this:
And while we're on the joys of youth, remember as a parting word of advice that if you must show a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner at a school function, the Supreme Court says you're better off with something like this.
