"When I'm Sixt-Four...."

Link: Man Drinks Liter of Vodka at Airport Line.

OK, yes, I found this on Fark, but I only went there because I wanted to know what was happening with them filing for a trademark on "NSFW."

Apparently a teenager from Iceland called the presumably unlisted phone number used by the Secret Service to route calls for President Bush.  A teenager?  From Iceland?  Not that there are all that many phone numbers in the 202 area code anyway, but my favorite part of the article is how they kept this kid on the line.

Vífill claims he was passed on to several people, each of them quizzing him on President Grímsson's date of birth, where he grew up, who his parents were and the date he entered office.

 

"It was like passing through checkpoints," he said. "But I had Wikipedia and a few other sites open, so it was not so difficult really."

I seriously doubt that the Secret Service had any intention whatsoever of passing this kid on to a real West Wing staff member- they just wanted to trace the call.

Link: ABC News: Ten Dials Bush Private Number 'to Chat'.

Have you ever come across a site whose only purpose, it seems, it to go completely viral and invade your consciousness?  Enter Terry's Chop Shop..  Um, Terry just chops stuff with an axe.  Like a bottle of Chanel No 5.  Or a champagne flute.  Genius.

Save on cooling costs?
Chill out, Microsoft!
Siberia is cooler than Brooklyn.
Data center to have free vodka instead of soda.

Ok, I'm done.

Link: Microsoft Mulls Data Center in Siberia - WSJ.com.

My grandfather was a professor at Cal, my dad went to UCSB and Cal, and my dad went to the Stanford Business School.  So it is with only mild loyalty that I watch this perfectly obscure pop culture reference from he Cal marching band. 

When executed well, maching bands can execute brilliant pop culture references.

My group, The Stuff, has a small slot in a show tomorrow night at
Rififi.  You will get a shot of free booze at the end of the show
courtesy of whoever sponsors the show (I think last time I checked it
was Jameson).  And then you can buy me and my group drinks! .

The show is part of "Slightly Known People is Seeing Other People"
Saturday, Nov. 10, 8pm
Cover: $5
RiFiFi
332 East 11th Street
Between First and Second Aves

Kevin! You spent nine hundred and sixty seven dollars on room service![Home Alone 2]

Link: G.M. Posts Its Biggest Quarterly Loss - New York Times.

As I recall it was just such an act that made Steve Martin crash his car in "Parenthood."

Link: VW, Crispin Unveil 'Road Joy' Campaign.

NEW YORK VW Canada wants people to go out and commit random acts of road joy.

Daily Show's John Hodgman's Mentally Ill money: AWESOME!!!!!

I love this- the (annual?) MacArthur genius awards have been announced and 6 of 24 "geniuses"
are from NYC.  Lord knows I know many awesome folks ion NYC(shout out to NextNY!)- it's such a great and vibrant community, and I think the brashness of the city rewards the scrappy go-getter in all of us. 

Nominations and deliberations are secret, so you don't know if you are being considered or even if you have been nominated. I assume that this creates two distinct possibilities:
1. Maybe YOU are being considered right now.
2. I wonder if they can nominate a psychic/clairvoyant...

Link: Geniuses Among Us? - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog.

Countless tweets about twitter being down and the empty slice of people's lives as Twitter goes down for maintenance.

Link: Twitter is being upgraded!.

Two Comments on ask.com re-launching "in 3-D"[paidcontent] this one:

1. Now ask.com has an even prettier way to be last in search market share
2. In 3-D is a killer Weird Al Yankovic album.

There are some things which are just sheer delight.  I went to YouTube today, thinking that I'd watch the video for White and Nerdy again, but on the homepage was a link to "Will it Blend"- a series of short videos in which an employee of high-performance blender manufacturer Blendtec attempts to answer the question, "Will it Blend?"  This is like turning Gallagher's produce-smashing Sledge-a-matic routine into an endorsement for a line of comically oversized sledgehammers.

With one glaring difference.  With Gallagher (NO PROBLEM!), I'm always distracted by him acting all fabulous, which is fine, if that's your persona.  Tom Dickson, the host of "Will it Blend" would probably bore grey carpet to death.  So, there's nothing to distract from the fun of asking whether golf balls, a rake handle, 50 marbles, a McDonald's combo #1, Tom's credit cards, or coke and half of a cooked bone in chicken...will be chopped into little bits by Blendtec's machine. 

I bet this sells a lot of blenders- it would be great to have data on this.  I can say for sure that I'd rather watch this than an infomercial any day.  It's real, it's fun, and it impresses me about functionality.  This is the future of viral advertising for kitchen products.