Rock Star

I've watched a couple episodes of Rock Star on CBS and decided Dilana is much better than the rest of the group. She's a little odd, but amazing to watch. The way she did Ring of Fire on Tuesday night was outstanding. She may not fit the stereotype of what people think this band should be, but maybe they should have something different.

Roller Derby

I think I am starting to get into roller derby. I've always been interested in the sport, but there is finally more access with new leagues popping up around the country every day. In fact, there was recently a TV show based on the TXRD in Austin, Texas, and a documentary in the final production stages. I think I need to marry a roller derby queen.

Magic?

I'm watching Criss Angel Mindfreak on A&E and I realize that Criss might not be doing illusions at all. I've watched hundreds of illusions, and you can often find the same "situations," but with some of Criss' magic, it seems very different. I'm not a magician, so I don't know, but you think some magic may be real? Either way, it's a damn good show.

English language stuff

The English language is quite interesting when you take a close look at it. One example is the etymology, or the origin of words in the language. Think you have it figured out? Take an etymology quiz and see just how much you know.

Now that we know the origin of the words, how do we put them together? It appears we often do that incorrectly. Avoiding "writerisms" can help you become a stronger writer. Still coming up short? Make an office call to Dr. Grammar to cure your writing ills.

It's Variety Day!

We've lost all focus today, so here's a variety of cool things found.

Remember the games at the fair midway where you threw a baseball at a odd-looking, stuffed doll? Well, those things are called "punks." Several artists are involved in designing new punks for circuspunks.com.

Years ago, Omni magazine had a thing you cut out and put on your record player (see, it was years ago). Now the Internet has that thing, and you don't need basic cutting skills or a record player. Modern technology is groovy!

Want to know how many seconds old you are? How about your age on Venus or Neptune? Re-date.com does all the work for you so you have time to plan for your 500th month celebration.

At Diction-Araoke you can listen karaoke hits as performed by online dictionary pronunciation voices. The entry on Green Eggs and Ham is well done. Yes, they made it into a song.

Hacked construction signs

In the mid 1990s, there was a story on the radio news about someone who had hacked into an electronic highway construction sign. They had changed the message to "YOU ALL SUCK." It seems the security on the sign wasn't good enough to keep the hacker out, but it was able to keep out the police and the early responding road crews, so they could not change the message or disable the sign. They eventually threw a blanket over the sign to cover the message. How funny would it be to see that message when driving to work in the morning? Very.

We've also uncovered a couple more recent electronic highway construction sign hijacks. One in West Palm Beach was a response to the mayor placing a message on the sign days before. It's an amusing story. If you scroll down through the comments section, someone has posted a censored picture of the sign. It's a bit more racy than "YOU ALL SUCK," but nearly as funny.

Another incident occurred in Michigan, when someone changed the sign to read "Speed limit 100 mph go go go." Apparently MDOT couldn't find the entertainment value in it.

And in Salt Lake City, a prankster placed Dave Chappelle's famous Rick James line on a sign. The funniest thing about this story is the quote from the UDOT spokesperson -- "It's an offensive message." Now that's good material.

Cool New Interactive Site

There's a site out there that allows you to set up a page with links, sticky notes and RSS feeds that you can share with others. It's all interactive and you can drag and drop the items. The site is called Protopage. We just started using it, but it is pretty cool. The site is under development and there is a rumor they may eventually add support for POP e-mail.
We're going to test the sticky page element and leave each other messages. We'll pass any cool ideas along as we discover them.