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GOOG-411
For those of you who don’t know, GOOG-411 is an automated information service that is free to use with little to no advertising. You can call 1-800-GOOG-411 and get directory listings for any area in the United States, free of charge.
Just thought I’d throw that out there.
Oh, I can’t seem to find the Penn State / MIT help lines that you can call up at any time to get Google listings for any random questions you might have. Anyone know what they are?
Bank ATMs Converted to Steal Credit Card Info
That picture alone should get you to read the article.
Booksthatmakeyoudumb
Got this from Terrence. Behold, the “Booksthatmakeyoudumb”!
Someone went on Facebook, collected the ten most frequent “favourite books” at each college, then got the average SAT/ACT score for students at that college, and plotted the average SAT of the book, as it were, it on a graph.
The results. Note the vertical axis means nothing.
This is awesome.
About me - finally made!
I decided to finally make the About Me page active on my weblog, so you can see the short writeup I have about myself there. I plan on taking more pictures as the weather gets better so I can hopefully start an album page as well.
On life, death, and the finality of it all.
This was a co-worker of mine at PokerStars.
Alvin Arevalo was an American from California in my training class with me in Costa Rica when we took poker specialist / customer support jobs for PokerStars. He was a fun-loving guy, one who loved the outdoors, watched his diet (didn’t eat too many carbs, I remember), and really took to the zipline canopy tours over the rainforest with Randy (another co-worker) and I. We talked about the glory days of PartyPoker, what we’d do if we were offered permanent positions in San Jose, Costa Rica (he eventually accepted one), and stayed in touch even after I left the company.
It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that we were hiking up the mountains in Costa Rica with our supervisors and other co-workers, happy to be working for such a great company with lots of interesting people.
I’ve been told that the news article is both inaccurate and flat-out wrong in a few places, and that the story is a lot more devious with premeditation involved, but there’s no real reason to expound on that.
Rest in peace, Alvin.
Music update
Here’s what I’ve been primarily listening to as of late:
For those playing at home, that’s Cartel, Haste the Day, Imogen Heap, Juliana Theory, Thrice, and Radiohead. I’d put them in arbitrary groups to help describe them, but some of my readership gets uppity when I mislabel certain bands, so I won’t bother. Check out Seeqpod for samples by the bands if you’re looking for something new on your playlist.
Favorite songs by the groups above are:
- Cartel - Burn This City
- Haste the Day - Long Way Down (Goo Goo Dolls cover, actually)
- Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
- Juliana Theory - We Make the Road By Walking
- Thrice - Deadbolt
- Radiohead - Reckoner
Enjoy!
Cat Charity Update
So far I’ve been able to sell everything but the Game Boy Advance, the PS2, the Xbox (which I am going to keep and turn into an emulator box / media center anyway), and a few minor things that aren’t worth much anyway. We’ve netted just over $600 to donate to the cat’s medical bills. Great job, and thanks for participating, everyone. The cats are currently staying with me since Astrid and her family are moving out, so I’ll try to get a picture or two before I have to let them go. My cat isn’t necessarily happy that they are there, but deep down inside I am sure she appreciates the company (since I’m always gone).
Finally on the Nintendo DS bandwagon
I know, I’m just on the cutting edge of technology, right? Anyway, I just picked one up when I went to reserve Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare at the downtown Gamestop (and getting like $30 on traded in stuff that I thought was essentially worthless, which was nice). My co-worker Kevin coerced me into buying it after showing me the emulator that he has for it, since it takes MicroSD cards and is really easy to operate. Apparently the DS can operate as a VoIP device over some networks, which is amazing. It won’t be soon before technology simply passes me by and I’m no different than the average middle-aged man who shakes his fist at the Internet.
Do you guys have any recommendations for games besides the Brain Age series? I played a bit of Brain Age 2 a few minutes ago and my head feels like it’s going to explode already - apparently my Brain Age is 31, which is old (I didn’t need a video game to tell me I’m an idiot, I knew that already). No more “thinking” games, though, I already do enough of that at work.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man want want want can’t wait can’t wait can’t wait can’t wait
The Call of Duty series (minus the shitty XBox 360 exclusive) are some of the only good video games to come out in the past few years (Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, Gears of War, Halo 3, and maybe 2 or 3 others I am not thinking of, but I doubt it). Call of Duty 4 looks absolutely amazing. If you haven’t played the demo yet, get it here.
It uses a whole new engine (not that there was anything wrong with CoD’s original engine) with environment-specific physics, so hiding behind a wooden fence won’t protect you from AK-47 fire. Night vision with infrared technology is used, flashbang effects are great, and the M4A1 Grenadier is awesome. Movement is realistic (i.e. slow) and the weapons systems are the same as the original CoD engine with perfect sound effects and graphics.
There’s nothing more to say. Go get the demo. Buy it on November 5th.