My Surmise: February 2006

Monday, February 27, 2006

Gmoney

Google recently posted to their official blog:

"As the number of Google services has increased, we've continued to build on our core payment features and migrate to a standard process for people to buy our services with a Google Account. Examples of this migration include enabling users to buy Google Video content, Google Earth licenses, and Google Store items with their Google Accounts. We also just began offering similar functionality on Google Base. Looking ahead, we want to continue building payment services that meet the needs of Google users and advertisers. We expect to add payment functionality to Google services where our users need a way to buy online. For us, it's all about bringing our users a better online experience whether they're searching or buying."

Frankly, I am a little aggravated by this post. For months there has been much excitement amongst the blogosphere about a new Google Payment's system. A new service to finally bring an end to PayPal's monopoly over small volume online payments. And when Google finally makes an announcement about this new program that there has been much speculation about, they tell us nothing. Is this service going to be offered to the general public or just Google Base users? Is it going to be ad supported and fee free (I would like that!)? How about some answers Google.

Labels: Google

10:50 PM | Permalink |

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Salute to Family Guy: TV's Most Original Animated Series

I found a picture of this cover on a subscription card. At first I thought it was just a fat(er) version of The Simpsons, but then I looked closer and saw it was a parody of how Family Guy is a knock off of The Simpsons. So Funny. So true. Image © Mad Magazine

Update: Brandyn, a commenter, referred me to this video which shows specific instances of Family Guy copying The Simpsons:

8:13 PM | Permalink |

Thursday, February 23, 2006

An Interesting Tidbit...The Phonetic Alphabet

Today I thought it would be fun to talk like Jack Bauer, so I did a little research (actually a quick Google search) and I found the phonetic alphabet. It goes as follows:

A - Alpha	B - Bravo	C - Charlie	D - Delta	E - Echo
F - Foxtrot	G - Golf	H - Hotel	I - India	J - Juliet
K - Kilo	L - Lima	M - Mike	N - November	O - Oscar
P - Papa	Q - Quebec	R - Romeo	S - Sierra	T - Tango
U - Uniform	V - Victor	W - Whiskey	X - X-ray	Y - Yankee
Z - Zulu

Zulu is my personal favorite. You could have all sorts of fun with this...the next time you have to spell something out on the phone use this alphabet...I guarantee it'll confuse whoever your talking to.

5:49 AM | Permalink |

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

This one IS my working...

My local 10:00 news does this segment called "sound off" where they have you email them your response to their question of the night. Tonight's question was "Which US president should be honored with a national holiday?" and yours truly answered that palmer should be awarded with this honor...and they put it on the air! I'm so happy right now.

4:13 AM | Permalink |

Someone is a little obsessed....

I want to make one thing very clear; this map is not my doing. It is however really cool and possibly something I would have done, if I had the patients. This map, titled "Jacktracker," tracks Jack Bauer's moves throughout season 5 (of 24), complete with his method of travel, time and pictures! From the map's description it is updated every Tuesday. As, I said in the title...someone is a little obsessed. But, Good for them. Be sure to mouse arround or click anywhere on the map to be taken to the full map.

3:12 AM | Permalink |

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Ten Ways Dick Cheney Can Kill You

Picture courtasy of Boing Boing

6:34 PM | Permalink |

Date Movie

Overall, I was pretty disappointed in Date Move. When I first saw the preview in mid January, I thought this movie looks great, I cant wait until it comes out. Every Thursday night I would check movie fone, does it come out this week? And when its opening night finally came I was all pumped up to see this long awaited comedy, but I was quickly brought down. My biggest problem with this movie was the preview. Sure it was funny and got me to see the movie, but like about 75% of the movies Ive seen lately, the preview shows the best parts. Few scenes were funny to me, being that I had already seen them so many times, a terrible thing if this is the first time you are actually seen the movie! Another problem I had with it was that they squeezed in just about every pop culture reference they possibly could. It didn’t seem that they cared about the humor of each reference, but merely the fact that they included it. Maybe if they choose to limit the movies (and people) they parodied, they would have been spent more time with each one and make them funnier. All in all, the movie did deliver brief moments of mild chuckles and some smiles. If you haven’t yet seen the preview, dont and you might actually like the movie. Also if you arent familiar with pop culture, this movie is certainly not for you.

2:12 AM | Permalink |

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

It's a Small World

Okay, maybe this street sign doesn't actually exist, but after I made it thought it looked pretty cool. This site lets you finally "find" a street sign with your name on it.

3:16 AM | Permalink |

Monday, February 13, 2006

It was Arrested Development

While you were watching the opening ceremonies of the winter Olympics (Yawn)...I was watching the two hour finale of Arrested Development. I wanted to take a moment to blame each and every one of you who didn't watch the show...It's your fault the show was canceled...you should be ashamed of your self. Me and a cupple of other fanatic fans are hoping the show will be picked up by Showtime or ABC. If it does get picked up **WATCH IT** It's super funny and you wont regret it. In case you missed it or want to see what you were missing this video did a good job of summing it all up.

1:02 AM | Permalink |

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Google Desktop: A++

I've wanted to give Google Desktop a try for a while now but I never really got around to it. Yesterday I finally decided to try it out. After I installed it took only about an hour to index my 22 GB hard drive (It was indexed while my computer was idle). I had three major concerns about using this program. First I was afraid that the index would take up a massive amount of space. Second, I was afraid that it would phone home to Google and send them info from my files. Third, I was afraid that the program would slow down the startup and functionality of my computer. All of my fears were put at ease after doing a little testing. The index is only 268 MB after indexing 22 GB of files. Also I was able to block Google desktop from accessing the internet through my firewall. Blocking the access did not limit the programs search functionality. However, blocking Google Desktop's internet access did limit the functionality of the sidebar, which I don't have any interest in using anyway. To ease my last fear, my computer continued to run and startup at normal speed. The program is very helpful. If I cant find a file but I know what it's about, all I have to do is search for a few keywords and Google's got the file for me in a matter of seconds. Sure beats window's search, which could take hours to search my PC and doesn't even search the content of the files. I would definitely recommend this program to any computer user.

10:31 PM | Permalink |

Monday, February 06, 2006

Super Bowl XL...More Like Super Bowl XS

I'm one of those guys who watches the super bowl primarily for the commercials and I have to say I was a little disappointed this year. Sure there were a few good ones, but what was with the serious commercials and the repeats. What company would pay $2.5 Million for a spot and not even make a new commercial? Here's a list of my top 5 commercials and probably the only good ones (I linked to Google Video where I could otherwise it liked to iFilm):

I also see on Google video that there 4 banned Go Daddy commercial. I watched these commercials and come on they're really not that bad. I think were getting a little over protective. We've already set the age limit on the half time shows to 85, now we have to censor the commercials. Don't even get me started on the half time show, I didn't even know McJagger was still alive, let alone performing.

7:42 PM | Permalink |

Friday, February 03, 2006

Let Me Take Your Photo (again)

Video Link (Replaced video in order to increase main page load time) Last night Leno aired a second take of the free photo booth, not quite as funny as the first one but still post worthy.

8:31 PM | Permalink |

Let Me Take Your Photo

Video Link (Replaced video in order to increase main page load time) This is a very funny clip I received in my email. Jay Leno set up a video free photo booth in Universal Studios and as you would expect people were eager to take their photo in it. The funny part is that their is a live video feed and an audio hook up in it, the voice tells them to do funny stuff in order to get their free picture, and people do it! Its kind of hard to explain, just watch the video!

2:42 AM | Permalink |

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Google.cn

I have decided to remove this post because: a) I was trying to sound smarter than I am b) It was kind of controversial and I wanted to avoid stupidly offending anyone

8:06 PM | Permalink |