This cake could fool me from a distance, how about you?

Tezco spotlights a bunch of other cakes, noting:

Yes, these are all real cakes, made from flour and eggs and frosting. No plastic models here.

I also like the money counting cake, solitaire, roulette wheel and tennis shoe. Mad skills indeed.

Perhaps our town being without usable city water for 24 hours now is the main reason this who is sick mashup stuck out in the RSS reader. To use, just enter in your zip code, click on your symptom(s) and fill up the colorized pie: runny nose (red), cough (green), fever (yellow), headache (black), muscle ache (orange), stomach ache including diarrhea, nausea and vomit (black).

You can also receive an email when there is an “outbreak” in your area. Just enter your email address. Not sure how reliable this service actually would be since our area must have at least one problem and I was the first person to report anything.

Contaminated water update
Local restaurants have been closed today and school has been called off both today and tomorrow. An automated message on the office phone this morning said that water will not be available for use again for at least 24-48 hours. As you drive into town the following sign has a message I’ve never seen anywhere before:

We went out last night and bought six 5-gallon containers from a water dealer at 40 cents a gallon. We took some water to a couple neighbors. The city is giving away one gallon of water free to each person in the family at the school. Nobody in our family is sick, but I’ve had an upset stomach for a couple days and my wife said she was feeling a bit light-headed today. I don’t think either of our symptoms is due to the water situation but will admit the surrounding conditions are making our family go hmm.

The kids are fine, happy in fact, to miss more school. With all the missed days, they are going to be going to school through July.

The city just called our office with a spooky message: don’t drink the water, it’s contaminated. No, this is not a joke and I’m not kidding.

Apparently the water is contaminated in our area. I don’t have any more details yet including how far reaching the contamination is (I didn’t speak to the city official, my wife did) — and don’t see anything about this at any of the local news services yet — but am going out now to buy more bottled water just in case the water is contaminated for awhile and if there is a rush from others doing the same in our area. We already use bottled water and make our own ice (not from the tap). I’ll be back to update this post later when I learn more.

Eerie.

Update 7:42 PM PST: KOMO and KIRO vans are out at the local Safeway along with a command center of Fire Engines. It’s front page news on KOMOTV.com website as of this writing saying that the water is “possibly” contaminated. Area restaurants have all been ordered to shut down.

Hmmcast #91 mp4

Hmmcast #90 mp4

Last Friday we covered fighting over counter space, but there is no fighting over closet space, it’s hopeless.

Download Hmmcast #85 mp4

Last weekend I cleaned around my v-shaped glass desk. Dust balls, bunnies and worse, pretty scary. This weekend I have a new cleanup mission:

How does it look behind your primary computer workstation area? Wires snaking everywhere or a picture of neatness? How often do you clean up the wire mess behind your computer? The words ‘fire hazard’ come to mind as I view this mess. That and the scene from Indian Jones with all those snakes.

Be honest now, the gods of cleanliness are watching.

More doubts cast over the reliability of Wikipedia, this time in reporting the correct status of a famous actor and comedian’s heartbeat.

Actor-comedian Sinbad had the last laugh after his
Wikipedia entry announced he was dead, the performer said Thursday. Rumors began circulating Saturday regarding the posting, said Sinbad, who first got a telephone call from his daughter. The gossip quieted, but a few days later the 50-year-old entertainer said the phone calls, text messages and e-mails started pouring in by the hundreds.

Sinbad will get over this case of wiki vandalism. Maybe the vandal had seen too many Sinbad movies.

(har, har)

I’ve been finding it a bit challenging avoiding Wikipedia Google results, which might be a sign that Google needs to re-evaulate if Wikipedia information is as valuable as the engine thinks it is. Just because a lot of people link to something or even if they click on it doesn’t mean that it is the most relevant.

Update 11:50am PST: Did some checking around and with the CustomizeGoogle Firefox add-on it’s easy to filter out results from sites like Wikipedia as well as remove that annoying click tracking and more.

Download Hmmcast #76 mp4

Boston Official Website: bandboston.com, Google search for Boston music, Borat - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (affiliate)

On a sad note Boston guitarist and vocalist Brad Delp passed away over the weekend and reviewing Borat. Grade: A

(oh and yes, my hair is kind of wacked out in the vid)

Update 3/16/07 6:59pm PST: Delp’s death ruled suicide:

The 55-year-old lead singer placed two notes on the door, warning family members of the carbon monoxide whirling around inside the house. The other message is said to be a suicide note. It read, “Mr. Brad Delp. J’ai une ame solitaire. I am a lonely soul.”

Looking for some flexible furniture made from recycled materials?

The FlexibleLove™ self-describes as:

A honeycomb structure, used throughout the entire FlexibleLove line, produces an accordian-like result that allows each piece to be collapsed and extended with ease.

The trademarked name sounds more like a sex toy than chair, and one must wonder what the comfort level is like? It sort of reminds me of the last page of a Mad Magazine (remember those?). Any guesses how much this chair costs?

If you guessed $800 USD, bingo. Sold out as of this writing. Strange pricey home furnishings, I’ll pass.