so i was kind of surprised to fire up Chrome and see these exploding balls bouncing around my screen, only to slow form into the logo portion... of course it's interactive, so the balls go flying everywhere if you mouseover 'em and whatnot... it's just neat to see that Google is still playing around, or at least there's people over there that are still having some fun with it.

you still don't see many companies doing it, that's for sure.

p.s. 22 Amazing Google Related Mac Apps For Free Download

*** make a choice, don't embrace your inner dbag.

anybody else psyched to see this one?

that's right, i kind of broke down and ordered a damn papertowl bamboo holder thing... on one hand i feel like a bit of a dork for posting this, while on the other i think it's definitely an improvement and appreciate the feedback — least you guys don't sugarcoat it and give it to me straight, which is always cool.

p.s. i finished painting my bathroom this past week... another small project done.

guess it makes perfect sense if you're a fan... like if i was at the mall and saw a calendar with nothing but sexy photos of Swanepoel, Adriana Lima, or Monica Bellucci i'd probably have to pick it up.

The post–Cold War New World Order is rapidly breaking apart. Nations are returning to the ancient passions, rivalries, and differences of past centuries.

Take Europe. The decades-old vision of a united pan-continental Europe without borders is dissolving. The cradle-to-grave welfare dream proved too expensive for Europe's shrinking and aging population.

Cultural, linguistic, and economic divides between Germany and Greece, or Holland and Bulgaria, remain too wide to be bridged by fumbling bureaucrats in Brussels. NATO has devolved into a euphemism for American expeditionary forces.

Nationalism is returning, based on stronger common ties of language, history, religion, and culture. We are even seeing the return of a two-century-old European "problem": a powerful Germany that logically seeks greater political influence commensurate with its undeniable economic superiority.

The tired Israeli-Palestinian fight over the future of the West Bank is no longer the nexus of Middle East tensions. The Muslim Arab world is now more terrified by the re-emergence of a bloc of old familiar non-Arabic, Islamic fundamentalist rivals.

With nuclear weapons, theocratic Iran wants to offer strategic protection to radical allies such as Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and at the same time restore Persian glory. While diverse, this rogue bunch shares contempt for the squabbling Sunni Arab world of rich but defenseless Gulf petro-sheikdoms and geriatric state authoritarians.

Turkey is flipping back to its pre-20th-century past. Its departure from NATO is not a question of if, but when. The European Union used to not want Turkey; now Turkey does not want the shaky EU.

good stuff as always... though not exactly cheerful — he sure seems to hit it on the head in his description of Japan, China, Russia, and the crazy shit going on right now in Mexico.

i also tend to automatically think "douchebag" whenever i see some guy, usually in slacks and a button down like you'd see at the office or out at a bar, with a ponytail... don't know what it is, but guys with ponytails usually look like dbags — unless they're harley riding badasses.

On Monday, this graphic video of an unknown girl throwing puppies into a river appeared online, much to the consternation of internet-using animal-lovers everywhere. But don't fret: The weirdos and agitators of 4chan's /b/ are hot on the trail.

Warning: This is a graphic video! Seriously! Don't watch it if you don't think you can handle animal abuse.

On Monday afternoon, this video was posted to a thread on /b/—the unruly, lawless "Random" board on the popular imageboard site 4chan—along with a characteristically sweet message: "Find this dumb little bitch and throw her into a river."

this video's been all over the place for the last couple days, and while i've watched it a couple times now, it still manages to make my stomach turn... apparantly director Michael Bay posted a $50,000 reward for informaiton leading to the arrest of this woman.

p.s. there's a very active facebook page dedicated to finding this whore, whoever she is, here.

the other reasons are definitely true, but these two especially ring true for me:

No HD Antenna
It's a real shame that more people don't pull down HD broadcast signals to their television sets. Not only do those signals look better than the more-compressed signals on cable and satellite, but they're free - just like the standard-definition signals most of us started ignoring when we switched to pay TV.

Apple's point here is to encourage users to buy television shows from iTunes, and not to help them watch for free, and the $99, loss-leading price point of this hardware backs up that argument. But since some of the networks refuse to cooperate, an antenna would be a nice kluge for getting that content onto Apple TV - bonus points for linking it to a TiVo-like hard drive or streaming it to a computer, so that users could record (or at least watch) video from local HD broadcasters in addition to paying for it in the cloud.

No 1080p
To put it bluntly, this is 2010. Huge televisions cost next to nothing compared to just a few years ago. People want real high-definition signals from their "HD: equipment, not this watered-down 720p signal.

personally, i can't get over the 720p.

BUXTON, N.C. – Hurricane Earl packed winds near 140 mph as it blew toward North Carolina on Thursday, putting the Eastern Seaboard up to Maine on alert for a Labor Day weekend pounding by waves, gales and rain.

A hurricane warning for the tip of Massachusetts, including Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, joined earlier warnings and watches for hurricanes or tropical storms that stretch from North Carolina up to near the Canadian border.

Earl was a dangerous category 4 storm with no significant change in strength forecast before it comes close to the Outer Banks late Thursday, then turns north in rough parallel to the coast, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

The center's director, Bill Read, said the eye of the storm will likely remain about 30 to 75 miles east of the Outer Banks. At the closest point of approach, the western edge of the eye wall could impact Cape Hatteras, with huge waves, beach erosion and maybe some property damage from the waves.

well this is something new... it's not everyday that we have a category 4 hurricane headed our way here in virginia -- i'm used to seeing the news about these hitting the gulf coast, cuba, florida... not the carolinas, virgina, and all the way up to maine.

hopefully i'm far enough inland and only have to deal with some rain.

p.s. Gulf oil platform explodes, burning off La. coast (uh oh, not again)

as always, it's nice to head on over to apple.com to see the latest stuff... course, i'm usually clicking around looking at all the nice high-res images and videos, along with looking at how they layout some of the pages, etc... not sure i'm going to bother updating to iOS4.1 when it's released — from what i gathered, it's just a few minor updates and tweaks... no new features or anything.

suddenly curious if they're working a new OSX... not sure why, but it feels like it's been awhile since snow leopard came out, doesn't it?

p.s. was happy to see that Lady Gaga didn't appear. *shudder*

update: looks like people are freaking out because they can't download iTunes 10 right away. damn.