My triumphant return to blogging

Yeah, it's been a long time.  I guess I lost interest, and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram seem to have changed the way we microblog.  But I still like to write, and I still like to surf, so I'll try go get back into the habit.

Speaking of fun things on the internet.  Go play this for a few minutes.  

http://smartypins.withgoogle.com/

On my first round, I went 15 rounds, and still had 'miles' left.

Stock Photo Tropes

My friend Aaron has made me aware that stock photography sites are suffering from either a lack of creativity in picture themes, or ridiculous demand for unusual items, such that the same type of picture keeps showing up repeatedly.

When you see the picture together, you will see why it's amusing. Here's an example from another blog.

Women laughing alone, with salad

Here's another.

This pile of bills is making my touch my head

And finally this. I don't have an all in one layout, you'll have to deal with the slideshow.

Happy black people with their arms crossed

I wonder how many I missed.

Classic pranks.

Once again, you've fallen for one of my classic pranks.

http://instantbazinga.com/

Comic Book Store Guy

My daughter thinks that I have some inexplicable talent for finding unusual and single-serving websites. She asked me to start a blog that showcased them. Then I remembered that I already bought this domain for just that purpose. So, today, I'm getting back on track.



Comicbook Store Guy turns the table on his customers.

Boob envy

How many of you have seen this picture before?

































Lots of fun, right? Well, you haven't really laughed until you have seen the rest of the pictures from that night.

Thank you, GIS. You have once again made my life sweeter.

Once again, Google makes science fiction real

Those clever folks at Google have done it again, and this time in such an over the top way, that my head is swimming at how surreal the invention is. Check this out.

Google has released an app for smartphones running the Google Android operating system. Big deal, you might say. Google has had a translation page thingy for years now.

Fair enough. But this is on a phone.

Big deal again, you might say. They probably just connect to the monstrous servers back home and spit translated text back to the phone.

Fair enough again. But this app translates voice. As in, I speak into it in English, and it translates what I've said and SPEAKS it back out of my phone in French. And then I switch directions, and the snooty French waiter at the brasserie speaks French into my phone and the phone translates it and SPEAKS English back to me.

Does this remind anyone else of THIS device?























No? Does it remind you of this then?




























Still no? Are you going to make me go find a C-3PO graphic?

You know, you would think that I would become jaded about technology, but the longer I play on the internet, the more it amazes me.

Single Serving Websites.

I can't remember if I mentioned this site before, so I'm doing it now.

I LOVE single-serving websites. I love seeing someone put a whole lot of creativity into something that might only get used once, or maybe once a day. There is something so artistically beautiful about that. So, here is a few of my very favorite single serving websites.

Star Wars Weather. Perfection.

Also, a runner up, and my previous obsession is Human Clock. Go read the homepage, and the about page, and then watch the clock for an hour or three. I can't explain it; it must be experienced.

So I just googled the phrase Single Serving Website, so that I could remember who I stole it from. (Thank you, Jason Kottke) and remembered a few others that I have seen and used in the past.

Is Google down for everyone, or just me? I'm not certain that is the exact title, but it serves to explain the website. I actually had a feed for this site for a while. It would tell me the name of every site that WAS down for everyone. It was kind of fun to see what sites people are so addicted to that they have to know if it's really down.

KHAAAN!!! Others have pointed out, but perhaps the most useful thing about this site is that it codifies the correct number of 'A's in Khan.

Now that I have read several articles on this trend, I'm pretty sure that I'll have one of these by the end of the year. I just need to come up with an idea that's worth 20 bucks a year, and simple enough to code with my limited PHP skillz. Probably something related to 8008135.