faildogs.com is the site I was talking about at the picnic today.  Here’s an example:

Here is a bit of Scott Adams’ latest:

When it comes to picking our next president, I can’t decide if I prefer the smooth-talking, inspirational candidate who promises to give my money to people who don’t work as hard as I do, or the old, short, ugly, angry guy with one good arm who graduated at the bottom of his class and somehow managed to shag a hot heiress and become a contender for president.  It seems dangerous to underestimate that guy.

This is so dumb as to be almost unbelievable; he’s got to be kidding, right?

Quoting Ben Charny:

Just how will Apple meet expectations? Using the patent application as a guide, Apple appears to be making room on the iPhone for flash memory, which means an end to Apple’s standoff with Adobe (ADBE) that’s kept iPhones from easily viewing a plethora of [Flash-based] Internet videos.

So let me get this straight.  Dow Jones actually pays Ben Charny to write about technology, yet Charny doesn’t understand that flash memory chips are not the same thing as Adobe’s Flash software platform?

This has to be a joke.  No technology writer can really be that clueless.  It’s like telling someone -- with a straight face -- that if they upgrade their car’s old and busted brakes to the new anti-lock brakes, then they’ll never have to worry about locking their keys in their car again.  "See?  It’s got anti-lock!"

Here’s something funny from last week’s episode of Security Now, from a listener who wrote in to the show about his dying hard drive:

Quoting Steve Gibson:

A listener by the name of Alex Walters wrote, and he said, ... "A little while back, [my hard drive] started to give me the dreaded ’Backup your data now’ error."  Now, he says, "I’m not a dumb person, but I hadn’t backed up my data on that drive in some seven and a half years.  I was quite interested in backing up that data."

Of course, it IS extremely dumb to not backup your data for seven years.

There’s a saying among computer people that "a file doesn’t exist until it exists in two places."  That’s because all drives are guaranteed to fail; the only question is when.  Most drives have warranties in the 1-5 year range, so that gives you some idea of how long the manufacturers expect them to last.

The bottom line is that if you’re not backing up your data, you’re essentially saying "my data is worthless to me."  In Alex Walters’ case, he was eventually able to recover the data for a mere $89 using SpinRite, but that’s not always possible.

Am I the only one who, upon hearing about this story and seeing the photos, can’t think of anything but the Geico cavemen?

The Geico cavemen, and "that’s totally photoshopped" are my primary reactions to this.

Two great comics: USB Cat at Slow Wave, and Unnecessary Horses at Pearls Before Swine, from which the following:

...becuss zeebas is like unnecesary horses.  You no can ride dem and dey dress funny.

Me typing it out is much less funny than the crocodile writing it.

Uploaded to the ol’ upload demo:

When spam subject lines go from annoying to insulting:

You look stupid in this video anthony!

Seen on a church sign yesterday:

GOD LOVES YOU
AND HE APPROVES
THIS MESSAGE

These Slowsky commercials are the best.

The irony, it hurts.

So I’m on weather.com just checking up on the weather forecast.  On the side of the page I see this "Tee-Off With Tiger" ad.  Obviously the image is a combination of three separate images, those being the golf course, the car, and the man.

But then I take another glance because something doesn’t seem right.  Ah yes, the "Buick" name and logo are totally Photoshopped onto that vest.  Haha, lame.

But there’s something else.  What’s wrong with Tiger’s head?  It looks freakishly small in that photo, almost as if it doesn’t match the body.

And then it all becomes clear when you notice that the arms on the body are clearly the arms of a white man, not a black man; and yes, the body that the arms belong to is clearly about twice as big as it should be for the size of Tiger’s head.

Quoting Rosecrans Baldwin:

No one has more contempt for Paris or French people than French Parisians.  On any topic that irks visitors: strikes, the lack of politeness on the Metro, the taxi shortage as caused by protectionist taxi unions.  Then again, French Parisians don’t like much of anything.  In London last week on a business trip to shoot a documentary, our crew numbered four: a Parisian director, a Parisian composer, and our Welsh location coordinator.  Most of the time we were stuck in traffic, an hour’s drive from the next shot.

"So who would win in a fight," the Welshman asked me, "New York or Los Angeles?"

It took me a second.  "Los Angeles.  New Yorkers would be too busy to fight."  Then I asked him, "OK, imagine it’s you and a hundred five-year-olds in a locked room.  The children are overcome with a desire to kill you.  How many could you put down?"

He thought for a second.  "Can I use one of them as a weapon against the others?"

"Sure.  But you have to remember they’re a mob."

"Yeah, I can’t let them get me on the ground."

A minute later we gave the game over to the French: "Who wins, Coca-Cola or Uma Thurman?"

The French didn’t answer and remained staring out the windows--it might have been Battersea, or Shepherd’s Bush.  Then the French director said, "That is not a game."  He started coughing.  "It is so Anglo, this game.  It is not a game.  How do you judge this?  It is a soda and a woman.  Then how do you decide?"

"One wins, one loses.  Just pick," I said.  But he refused: "It is nothing a French person would think is a game.  It is so stupid."

The traffic wasn’t moving.  I asked him to suggest a French game instead that we could play.  "OK, OK, here is a French game," he said.  "We will talk about something for a little while.  It will be about nothing.  We will talk and talk and talk about it.  Sometimes I will take the other side of the conversation, just to say you are wrong.  And then we will stop."

He resumed his brooding silence.  The composer turned to say he agreed, this was a classic French game.

We’re pet-sitting Heidi this week.  I’m really not used to having a dog around the house.

When I’m talking to clients on the phone, I always use the speakerphone, because I usually need to be typing and/or clicking the mouse while talking to them.

For some reason, this often causes the cats to flock to my desk, get on my lap, and sometimes meow a lot.  Occasionally a client will hear the meowing, and they’ll say aw, is that your cat, etc.  No big deal.

But today when I get on the phone, Heidi comes in, plops down next to my desk where her food bowl is, and starts crunching away.  I mean Captain friggin’ Crunching away.  The loudest crunching that I’ve ever heard and, I’m sure, that my client has ever heard.  She politely pretended not to notice.

Here are a couple of images uploaded to the FileChucker upload demo this week.  I have no idea what the original sources of these images are; I’ve searched briefly for the first one, and didn’t bother for the second.

This first one is beautiful, evocative, and extremely well-executed; I’d love to have it on my wall if I could find a high-resolution version:

This second one is nothing special, just some chicks in a hot tub:

(show full-size image viewer)

Well the game ended up being really exciting, though you wouldn’t have known it from the first 3 quarters.  But this year’s superbowl ads were mostly terrible.  Here are the ones that I liked:

Audi Godfather ad:

Tide To Go interview ad: funny only because the stain sounds like Steve Carell in that hilarious news scene in Bruce Almighty:

Doritos mouse ad: funny, but apparently it’s actually from last year:

Etrade baby ads: these are both hilarious.  The "you don’t know how old I am" line kills me:

Coke politics ad: James Carville & Bill Frist become friends.  I’m embarrassed to admit that this ad is genuinely heartwarming:

Bud Light Semi-Pro Will Farrell Jackie Moon ad.  "and the loins" says it all:

The anti-drug drug dealer ad:

Most Ridiculous

Most ridiculous: the idea that people get excited over Dell hardware:

Most Annoying

Both of these are too annoying to display inline; I can only bear to link to them.  Note also how both commercials defecate on top of classic songs:

AMP Energy Jumpstart TV commercial from The Big Game

Someone uploaded this picture today:

Hilarious, though probably less so if you don’t recognize the dude as "that guy who does all the iPhone guided tour videos."  The best part is the final 15 seconds.

I just got a hit from a visitor who found my site by searching for:

does Jack Bauer get overtime

I think it’s a safe bet.

Quoting ABC News:

The Iranian Foreign Ministry, however, called the incident "ordinary"

Yes, a speedboat jaunting around in the wake of another country’s warships is entirely ordinary.  These guys were obviously trained by Baghdad Bob himself.

It’s certainly possible that Iran is trying to provoke us into war, but nonetheless the above statement is absurd.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece on the history of maritime incidents as they relate to the wars we’ve fought.

From the recent Democratic debate:

"I’ve been in hostage negotiations that are a lot more civil than this," [Richardson] said, sitting with Mrs. Clinton to his left and Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards to his right.

The other day I got a hit from a visitor who had searched for this:

HOW DO I FIX THE SHIFT KEY ON MY KEYBOARD TO STOP PRINTING CAPITAL LETTER

This is an update to a previous post of Anthony’s: If today is Christmas while you are viewing this post, click the following link:

(One day only:  Is it Christmas?)

Quoting Roger Kimball:

To My Democrat Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish.

To My Republican Friends:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Probably the best thing about working from home is being able to spend all day every day with your cat.  Here are a few cat videos showing Cheshire doing funny stuff around the house.  The "wind" videos aren’t bad but the "water" ones are great.

I’ve also just finished adding a feature to my photos pages whereby video files such as these can be played right within the page, instead of having to click a "download" link to view the video in a separate application on your system.  But embedding videos in web pages like this is tricky and error-prone so please let me know whether/how it works for you.