1. Subject matter. In this case, a game geared toward younger audiences.
2. Overuse of exclamation points!!!!!!! is a sure !!!! sign of !!!! youth!!!
3. EVERYTHING IS IN CAPS
4. Overuse of internet slang: rox instead of rocks
5. Different names from the same IP in a short timespan
Definitely not a scientific study, but any guesses as to the age of this commenter?
With April Fool’s Day already striking in some parts of the world as I write this, figured I’d mention to readers who are also bloggers to be extra cautious about taking things too seriously the next couple days. In the tech world, the weekends tend to be shorter on news anyway, so this will give some bogus stories more time to resonate before being knocked off by other news. If you see greater than life headlines/stories before getting too excited, check the sources. For those who peg me as an uber cynic, expect my cynial nature to rise 1000% over the next couple days.
If I find some good April’s Fools Day posts/websites I’ll pass them along. I might even get involved in the fun myself (hint, hint). Life is too short if you don’t have a good laugh now and again.
What’s your favorite April Fool’s prank/website?
Update 6:06pm PST: Slashponies? LOL! See comments, thanks Sterling.
Maybe I was a little too harsh on YouTube. Videogame Theater featuring my favorite 80s arcade game PacMan: PacMan The Insatiable Hunger made me laugh out loud. At the end there is a Donkey Kong and Frogger teaser that was enough to get me to finally register.
Just a few of the quotes from the PacMan video, which I’m sure won’t be making Namco laugh (but they should):
Ms. PacMan: “Mister rich and famous until you threw it all away on pills and porn! Look at you, you’re pathetic”
PacMan slaps Ms. PacMan: “Don’t you ever cross me again you dirty whore. I’ll kill you.”
PacMan Junior: “Daddy nooooo! Not again.” [sob]
PacMan: “Shut up PacMan Junior! You’re not my kid anyway.”
PacMan: “… Listen kid, this town will chew you up and spit you out. I’m the greatest of all time. And you people? Ain’t the dirt under my yellow ass.”
Warning: do not have anything in your mouth when you watch this one, it’s spray-worthy. Extra credit applies for serving as an anti-drug message.
Testing the YouTube video sharing function below to see if I can embed the video here without having to do some extra WP scripting voodoo, if so enjoy, if not, just follow the link above.
Beware of an unhappy campers tale upon us. It’s like Gilligan’s Island sans the Skipper and Mary Ann. All these camps popping up everywhere: Foocamp, Barcamp, Mindcamp, maybe we need a Hmmcamp too?
It could have been a great opportunity for all sorts of hackers to come and make cool stuff. But it wasn’t. The universal reaction from my friends who spend their days writing code was “too many suits.”
MashupCamp was unenjoyable for me for the same reason that the Web 2.0 conference was unenjoyable- they weren’t about technology.
Tara writes that Doc’s comments made her “so disappointed right now I want to cry” but it seems like in the comments area no hankies were needed. [Nearly a month later and I’m stillwaiting for that promised Riya invite, Tara, and I’m so disappointed about that I could cry ;)].
This unhappy campers exchange reminds me of what I had to say about the upcoming Mix06 with Neverending conference fee gouging. I agree with Mr. King that these code-related camps should be focused on the technology. I mean isn’t that the point of these camps? Let’s get together, exchange ideas and code something cool in a group setting? Or is the point let’s just get together and spam each other network with products/services (like most conferences)?
Actually, it seems like it’s let’s get together and have people pitch their own products/services/books speak to us. No thanks on paying (too much) for that ‘privilege.’ If you are organizing something cool where creative people can get together and swap code and build things and decide to give it a camp name, cool, tell me where that’s at (and I don’t mind pitching in a few bones to pay my way for decent power and internet). If you are just going to throw together another overpriced conference with a trendy name and the cool crowd of the moment, then I’ll pass. I graduated from high school many years ago.
We’d like to find a place somewhere in that spectrum where people can get together and have some fun and maybe learn something new, and hopefully we can do that.
Note to conference organizers: #1 rule is do not go much past $300 for registration fees.
Our conference registration fee budget ends around $300. If it’s much over that, then they better throw in some killer amenities. I was going to say sexual favors, but I was worried people would take me seriously.
I wonder what Smokey the Bear thinks about all this?
Apparently, the Voice Skin geeks impersonated metal legend Ozzy Osbourne swearing directions so it can be used as a non boring satellite navigation voice and it’s outselling others big time:
“In 400 metres you have reached your f***ing destination,” he shouts, and when the signal is lost: “I’ve lost the f***ing satellite!”
Listen to the sample Ozzy Voice Skin. The sample is bleeped but you can buy bleeped or not. Also, wife Sharon has a voice skin, Sean Connery, President Bush. Too bad they couldn’t get the real celebrities and had to use impersonators.
So I wonder if you take a wrong turn on the railroad tracks if the Ozzman says you’re “… going off the rail on a crazy train!” And then there’s Over the Mountain …. oh, man, too many good Ozzy songs. Rimshot please.
Too bad Om took the convertible way instead of going slate, but any Mac user adding a tablet to their computing arsenal is a positive sign. The Lenovo X41 ThinkPad is a nice machine, so no knock there, but my advice continues to be for any new tableteer to wait for Vista or get a buffed up older model.
When I saw this light shaped like, well, a lightbulb (pictured below) at the local Fred Meyer’s store I just had to splurge for it! Nine bones and change and I’m still not sure when, where or how I’ll ever have any practical use for this thing. It doesn’t even have very good light with a non-non-non luminous 15 watt bulb in it.
Beyond the discussion of silly purchases we sometimes make, I’m not sure what purpose this light shaped like a lightbulb actually serves. I don’t get on my wife about the china figurines she buys (ok, sometimes I complain) that litter the tops of desks so I can’t put my wallet or change down without knocking the things over and hearing her rip me, so most of the time she spares hassling me over completely useless purchases like this one.
Your turn. Be honest now, what is the dumbest purchase you’ve made recently? What was something you bought just because that you haven’t found any use for? Or, perhaps you don’t make these type purchases and just want to laugh at my light shaped like a lightbulb?
I think every comment moderation section needs a brief, but helpful guide for identifying comment spam, so let’s see if we can put our collective brains together and come up with a list, here’s seven sure signs:
1. Blame the name (with ego stroke): I love reading your blog, well said, you really know what you are talking about and my name is adobe acrobat
2. Hyphen horny: this-is-my-keyword-loaded-viagra-domain.com.
3. Unrelated nonsense: My comment has absolutely nothing to do with what you are talking about — insert unrelated link — but I thought you might like to know my long rambling and completely incomprehensible run on sentence that doesn’t make any sense but seems to fill some word limit to look like it is, or perhaps might be, genuine.
4. Keyword diarrhea : some, keywords , separated, by, commas, over, and, over, and over, and over, and maybe over again and sometimes over without using commas over.
5. Programming run amok: comment that just says: array (this is what happens when you try to echo an array in PHP)
6. Hyperlink frenzy: Just nothing but hyperlinks. Doh!
7. Comment good, URL spam: The comment itself seems legitimate and on topic, but uh oh, look at where their URL leads — spam hell.
Have more sure signs it is comment spam to add to the list?
Isn’t it strange how a single misspelled word can take you new and different places on the web?
I just made a misspelling that seemed like a possible future blog headline or description: entertainted. I guess this might be what happens when you drop 60 bones taking the family to a movie and resent the experience?
Actually, it turns out there was (is?) a podcast with this name but the blog portion unfortunately hasn’t been updated since May 2005, created by Tim Henson (whom I don’t know and have never come across until viewing his site this morning). The entertainted.com about section showed podcast content with some promise:
Each new PseudoCast contains a show I’d like to hear. Look forward to poor quality, bad microhpone work, horrible editing, basically everything you’ve come to expect from crappy podcasts. The difference is we’ll be tackling bizarre and twisted content.
Actually it looks like this might have been an offspring (?) of a more regularly updated primary podcast with the most recent blog entry (1/23/06) saying:
Back with the Monday podcast! I’m a little cranky on today’s show, which is always a treat for you guys. Thanks for all the Emails, keep ‘em coming!
Always endearing as a listener being referred to as a ‘freak’. Advertising is cheap, only $25 USD for the whole year. Should I buy into some of that for Hmm? Did you know that we’ve never bought any advertising for this blog yet? Would buying advertising in a podcast that I’ve never listened to be a fitting first place to advertise? Maybe it’s time to get in on some of that entertainted action.
Beware of an unhappy campers tale upon us. It’s like Gilligan’s Island sans the Skipper and Mary Ann. All these camps popping up everywhere: Foocamp, Barcamp, Mindcamp, maybe we need a Hmmcamp too?
