Warning to others Jan 13, 2010
Today's F Minus comic reminds me of the Demotivator that says, "Mistakes:  It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others." 
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#entertainment
AT&T population coverage Jan 12, 2010
A recent AT&T commercial claimed that their network covers over 300 million people, i.e. the entire population of America.  This carefully worded claim is a bit misleading, however, since AT&T's subscribers number in the 80 million range, while the commercial is claiming something along the lines of being able to serve 300 million.  In other words, this is a lie. #entertainment
Colbert Christmas Dec 29, 2009
Stephen Colbert sang the excellent Another Christmas Song, which is part of a collection of parody holiday songs called A Colbert Christmas.  The former was included in iTunes' recent free holiday sampler, which is unfortunately no longer available.  Samples of Colbert's songs can be heard at this iTunes link.  Here's a sample of some lyrics: 
Santa Claus singing on naughty snow
Reindeer ringing in the mistletoe
The manger's on fire, the holly's a-glow
Hear the baby Jesus crying ho ho ho

Hey! It's another Christmas song
Yay! Another oft' returning, royalty earning Christmas song
I've got plenty more so go buy a modem
Log on to iTunes and pay to download 'em
Pay! For another Christmas song
That's some pure gold. #entertainment
Christmas song threat Dec 29, 2009
I always think it's funny that the song "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" includes a verbal threat, as in, "Bring us some figgy pudding ... and bring some out here / We won't go until we've got some ... so bring some out here."  Wikipedia says it comes from a 16th century British tradition of rich people giving treats to carolers, which really doesn't make it any less ridiculous. #entertainment
Media investment Dec 15, 2009
When starting a new book, video game, or movie, there's a certain investment of time before which I'm fine with giving up and cutting my losses, but after which I feel obligated to continue until completion.  If a book doesn't catch my attention in the first 5-10 pages, it probably won't no matter how much I read.  Video games and movies are usually easy to judge in the first 15-20 minutes, though I'll often let them go on a little longer just to make sure.  But sometimes I'll get past that point, continue reading/watching, and realize much later how poor of an investment of time I just made.  And that sucks, because I know the time I invested in the Spiderwick Chronicles can never be gained back.  It's gone forever.  Just like my self-respect, after having admitted to the world that I watched the Spiderwick Chronicles. #entertainment
Entertaining commercials (1) Dec 10, 2009
DVRs killed advertising because nobody will watch commercials when they can simply skip them altogether.  I see this as an entirely good thing because it means advertisers will need to change their tactics.  They'll do this by either (a) becoming over-the-top, in-your-face, obnoxiously annoying so that no one can possibly ignore them, or (b) by creating more entertaining commercials.  I've seen a little of (a), and those companies are immediately discounted.  But I've been seeing more and more of option (b) lately, which means I've actually been watching more commercials simply for entertainment.  That's the case with the unintentional faces commercial, and pretty much anything with Peyton Manning.  But as with most repeated things, each viewing is less and less enjoyable, until I resort to skipping the commercials again.  The solution to this would be to make many different variations of entertaining commercials.  For example, I might pay attention to one specific Peyton Manning commercial once, but make 10 different Peyton Manning commercials and I'd pay attention a lot more often. #entertainment
Unintentional faces (1) Dec 8, 2009
This American Express commercial is one that I actually watch every time it comes on.  It features a bunch of sad faces on everyday objects, followed by a bunch of happy faces on everyday objects, supposedly made happy by using a credit card.  Ok, so the main idea of the commercial is stupid, but the artwork is pretty impressive.  I just can't help thinking of the person whose job it was to find all those faces.  What a cool job. 

More faces on this Flickr set (via Boing Boing), this gallery, and What The Face. 

The practice of finding faces in everyday objects is an example of the psychological phenomenon of pareidolia.  Other examples include seeing animals in clouds and finding Jesus on your Pop Tart. #entertainment
Dirty image sensor Dec 1, 2009
If you're a camera nerd, or somehow otherwise obsessive and weird, you might have noticed from the Caribbean pictures that as soon as we reached the island of Curacao, there was a spot in the upper left corner of every picture (here, here, and here for example).  You see, as soon as we stepped foot off the boat that day, my camera lens fogged up.  That wasn't entirely unusual because it's a hot, tropical island with 10,000% humidity.  But the weird thing was that it managed to fog up the inside of the camera as well, which I suppose shouldn't be all that surprising, but it is.  So the first 15 minutes of that morning consisted of me sitting on a bench amongst the throng of tourists, feverishly wiping the condensation from the front and back optical elements of my camera lens.  Then things were well and good.  Except for that spot, which I saw, but for which I had no remedy.  I assumed it was something on the inside of the lens, and decided to just go about my day in the perfect island paradise that is Curacao.  I don't regret that. 

However, when I got back home, the spot still hadn't gone away, so I decided to fix it.  The first thing I did was use a lens-cleaning brush on the various mirrors and other things inside the camera body.  This very quickly proved to be the wrong idea.  Not only did it not solve the problem, it spread dust and debris all over the inside of the camera, which as luck would have it, doesn't aid in the production of nice photographs.  I frantically searched online and was pointed to the Giottos Rocket Blaster, which is essentially a fancy turkey baster or snot sucker (I like using that term), but with separate air intake and outflow, which makes it so that you're not simply sucking up dust and then blowing it around.  So I fumbled around with this thing for a little while, taking pictures in between each attempt to check to see if the spot had disappeared.  Nothing seemed to work, so I decided to dip deeper.  From what I could tell, after I take the lens off my camera, there's a mirror and a prism that simply direct the image to the eyepiece.  This is what I had been trying to clean up to this point, which is why it wasn't working.  It wasn't until I continuously depressed the shutter that I actually saw the underlying image sensor.  This blue-green piece of magic is essentially what makes a digital camera.  It's like a heart.  So I pressed the shutter and simultaneously used the snot sucker to blow any dust particles off.  I took a few pictures and was easily able to tell that this was the proper solution.  Snot sucker to the rescue! #entertainment
Strummit From The Summit (1) Nov 30, 2009
Strummit From The Summit is an album by two Alaskan mountain climbers named Vernon Tejas and Marty Raney.  It was passed along to me by a friend in Montana who claimed its weird mixture of comic folk tunes improves the quality of long car rides, especially through places like Montana.  It includes such lyrical gems as,
I really caribou you
I'm a loon when you're away
It's hard for me to bear, because I love you so deer
I really caribou you

You're salmon special to me
You give porpoise to my life
I dolphin thinking of you, I wolf forget I love you
You're salmon special to me
and
If you like your nose and all your toes
Listen to the Eskimos
There's things you can and things you can't expose

Jack and Jill went up the hill
Jack got cold, now Jack is Jill
The pail of water's just a pail of ice
When you're driving through miles and miles of big sky country and the nearest radio station is broadcasting from Canada, this music is an excellent choice.  It's also great if you happen to require an overabundance of puns. #entertainment
Too many sequels Oct 27, 2009
I've never seen any of the Saw movies, but I know from my rampant TV-watching that the 6th one is out now.  Six movies, apparently all with the same characters and plot?  When can we move on to something new? 

To be fair, TV shows do the same thing.  The Simpsons has been on the air for two decades.  Sure, there's some plot variation and character development, but it's essentially the exact same thing week after week for something like 400 weeks.  But we know that going in.  We know each episode is part of a larger story and doesn't necessarily stand on its own.  Movie sequels are sometimes a surprise because the original seemed to end perfectly fine.  And at some point, a sequel is simply a money-grab, using the name of the original success to generate more income with less effort.  Pirates of the Caribbean comes to mind. 

I played a video game recently called Far Cry 2, which would suggest it was a continuation of Far Cry, but which Wikipedia says "has very few noticeable similarities to the original game ... [and instead] features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay..."  In other words, it's a completely different game, made to seem similar by using the same name. #entertainment