Geekdom Link Dump

Some more random links for the geeks (and even for the non geeks) out there:

• Replacing Task Manager with Process Explorer in Vista (this is a much easier process in XP)
• Speed up your Web pages with Yahoo's new Firefox extension YSlow.
• Handy shell extension for handy right-click media conversion.
• How to hide files in JPGs.
• Alternatives to AllOfMP3.
• Windows Explorer alternatives compared and reviewed.
• 80+ FIle Hosting and Sharing sites.
• Embedding Outlook on your desktop.
• Gmail's "recent" mode to download email via POP.
• Viewing the "replied to" time in Outlook.
• Top 10 Unofficial Gmail apps and add-ons.
• Using htop to Monitor System Processes on Linux.
• 15 Ways to extend your laptop battery life (don't forget this tool for Vista).
• Epson's claims of cheaper ink are empty.
• Removing old drivers when upgrading to new hardware.
• Removing KDE icons in gnome and remove gnome icons in KDE.
• 10 Best Security Live CD Distros.
• Free DNS hosting.
• Reverse IP domain check at MyIPNeighbors.com.

Boy Hurt in Car Crash Wins $100K by Suing Parents

Now that's a creative way around an insurance company loophole.

That'll Take A While To Clean Up

An accident caused 24 tons of chicken crap on this guy's front yard. Quote of the story: "It was like a tsunami wave of hot chicken (manure)."

Tonight's City Council Meeting Should Be Interesting

Why, you ask? Because apparently at tonight's City Council meeting, there's going to be a vote on a resolution to recommend impeaching Bush & Cheney (City of Bend meeting schedule is here with full resolution here). The guy spearheading this effort used to have a blog here, but it's long since vanished.

Will this actually pass the city council? I seriously doubt it. And even if it did, whoopty frickin' do. It's not like the action of a city council in a small town thousands of miles from the White House will have any affect. The guy will be out of office soon enough and while I agree that he's been, for the most part, a worthless President, our Congressional leaders really have far better things to worry about (at least I hope) then trying to get Bush kicked out of office.

And that will be probably the last time for months that I will talk politics as I hate talking it, but everybody else is welcome to debate below.

I Want One

While hybrid cars are nice and all, good diesel cars still, for the most part, kick the tar out of them when it comes to milage. If somebody came up with a diesel hybrd, they'd probably be rich. But in the meanwhile, Honda is showing off a diesel Accord that gets over 60 MPG (and I hear there are VWs that will get close to that as well). Naturally, this as news that the United States ranks at the bottom when it comes to fuel-economy standards.

Sex Links

Yes, that headline was an obvious ploy to get attention. Don't know why I've been holding on to these, but here are a bunch of random sex links. Some of these are obviously a tad NSFW-ish:

• Sex can help you stay healthy.
• What it feels like to need sex all the time (Quote: "My whole vagina felt like a pressure cooker about to go off any minute --- but it wouldn't.").
• Foreign men have more sex than Americans -- or they lie a lot.
• 10 Craziest Places To Have Sex.
• Couples Who Don't Have Sex End Up Hating Each Other.
• Two women are making a documentary film about the history of vibrators.
• 8 Positions Women Love.
• How big is too big?
• This television station's call-letters are dirty.
• And just to throw a little more sexism out there: How To Deal With Woman During Her Period.

Uses For An Old NES

Oh come on, I'm sure I'm not the only one that has an old NES in the closet. Here's a few things you can do with it.

Unicel Customers Are Now Verizon Customers

I know a lot of people locally (and I used to be one of them) that are Unicel customers. They are now all Verizon customers (another story here and press release here).

I used them until my employer started paying for my cell phone, which meant moving to US Cellular. But they were one of the first companies to provide cellular service in this area, and I'm not surprised to see this happen as this area is growing quite fast and US Cellular has quite a few towers in the area. And according to Matt, T-Mobile is currently using Unicel towers, so I wonder how this will affect that relationship. Any local cell gurus who can answer that?

But this certainly now makes Verizon a good choice for rural customers while it wasn't so before, as Unicel has good coverage in hard-to-reach areas of central Oregon.

The Best and Worst News From The Last 24 Hours

I thought it was great when I heard that Paris Hilton wasn't going to get her inheritance. Too bad it was a hoax.

Fun Little Color Palette Tool

If you're ever trying to find inspirational color palettes for your design jobs, kuler is a dang handy (and fun) tool and I've spent far too much time playing with it today.

Random Video Link Dump

In another obvious "I have too much crap in my folder" move, here are a bunch of fun videos (after the jump):

Stevie Wonder Is An Incredible Musician

You all know that he's a great piano player, but did you know he was a killer drummer, too?

Another Parent Of The Year Nominee

This time, instead of a drugged out mom, it was a dad who just made a mistake...

An 11-month-old boy died in the back seat of the family car in Concord on Wednesday after his father apparently forgot to drop him off at day care and instead left him locked inside the vehicle while he spent the day at work, police said.

If Your Going To Run For A Top Political Office...

...make sure you know your country's national anthem and don't start singing France's anthem.

Anybody Need A Computer?

Long story short, I built a computer for somebody who I thought was a friend of mine who was trading work for me who then decided to leave town without paying me for said computer or finish his work. So I have a basically brand new, pretty darn fast (smokes my home PC), computer with 17" LCD Monitor sitting here that I can't afford to keep as I need the money, and just want to get rid of for my cost of the parts: $675 (I'd usually sell it for $800+ with all the time/labor I spent on it to build it).

Quick specs on the thing:
-Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Case with 450 watt ATX Power Supply
-ViewSonic 17" Black LCD (with built-in speakers)
-ASUS P5NSLI motherboard with built-in sound, network, etc... - upgradeable to dual (SLI) video cards and Core 2 Duo/Extreme processors and up to 4GB of RAM.
-160GB 7200RPM HD
-1 GB Dual Channel DDR2 RAM
-Intel Pentium D 915 Presler 2.8GHz (Dual Core)
-Radeon X550 256MB PCI Express Video Card
-10-in-1 Built-In Media Reader
-Lite-On Dual-Layer DVD/CD Burner
-Windows XP Pro (if you can provide a CD Key, as I used this guy's CD Key to install it and that would be piracy and that would be bad) or Windows Vista Business Edition (as I have a copy of that).

Understand that I'm not Dell, and I don't have their buying power, so I can't provide 24-hour tech support, and it'll probably be chaper to buy from a gigantic vendor. But I have built dozens of PCs over the years, and rarely have to work on them ever again. All the parts in the system carry at least a one-year warranty. It's been fully patched and anti-virus software has been installed, useless crap uninstalled, as has some basic (free) office software from openoffice.org.

It's seriously a great little desktop computer, and it's pretty darn quiet, too. If I had the extra money, I'd just replace my home PC with it -- so unless somebody's willing to just give me $675 so I can keep this thing, I have to sell it.

Would prefer to deal with somebody locally, as I don't really want to ship this thing. Questions, let me know.

Update on 7/29: The computer's been sold. Thanks everybody for your interest!

I don't even know what to say about this one...

...I'll just let the first couple paragraphs explain this one:

TORONTO (CP) - What do a woman wrapped in sausages, a bag full of elephant manure, and a skinned monkey all have in common?

They're just a few of the strange and stomach turning things officials with the Canada Border Services Agency have come across and confiscated during routine luggage checks at Toronto's Pearson International Airport in recent years.

Update: You know it'd probably help a lot of I gave you the link to the actual story.

The 100 Hottest Women

You've probably all heard of the various mens magazine's hottest women lists, but the interesting thing about this one is that it was chosen by lesbians.

What's Pee Wee Herman Been Up To Lately?

Now you know.

(Yes, I know the article's a month old -- I'm clearing out old items, give me a break).

Yet Another Reason To Come To (Or Avoid) Central Oregon During The Summer

The tourists that come here like to try to break odd ball world records -- like the nearly 4,800 folks who all sat on a whoopee-cushion at the same time, far short of the 5,983 needed to break the record.

They have a video of it, too, but I'd recommend you watch it from the front page of the site as the video link on the article page tries to use Windows Media, which sucks and doesn't work in Firefox at all, while the front-page Flash version (which I can't link to) works fine.

All these folks were all here for The Rally, which is a gigantic annual RV Rally in Redmond. I sure you could think of a hundred old farts in RVs jokes that would be appropriate here, but I'll leave that to you.