Links

Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.

M&M's go goth

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M&M’s, the colorful button-shaped candies, are about to go off color for the first time in 60 years, but it remains to be seen whether their fans love or hate the change.

The chocolate-filled sugar-coated candies, made by a division of U.S. confectioner Mars Inc., will be available in only black and white for the next few months instead of the standard six colors as part of a promotional campaign.

If anyone might (for some odd reason) be casting about for last-minute late Christmas present ideas for me, a bag (or multiple bags) of these would be great. I’ll eat the white ones, and save up jars of the black ‘goth-y’ M&M’s for amusement and future munch value.

(via Prairie)

Nobody's tried this yet?

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Frankly, I’d be more than a little surprised if nobody had attempted zero-g sex yet, no matter how strenuously NASA denies it. Still, if you’re looking to be the “official” first couple to give it a shot (and happen to be absolutely filthy rich), just give the Russian space agency a call!

THEY put the first man in space, then the first tourist. Now the Russians could make one wealthy couple the first members of the 240-mile-high club.

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In its latest attempt to develop space tourism, Russia is offering a pair of newlyweds the chance to swap Venice or Paris for a cosmic honeymoon on board the international space station.

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For $US48 million ($65 million) – the cost of a pair of space return tickets – the couple could become the first to experience the uncharted joys of sex in zero gravity.

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“It would bring the mile-high club to new heights,” said Rob Volmer of Space Adventures, the company that has teamed up with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency to offer the trip.

(via GothicVamps)

Top Word Lists of 2003

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Top 10 Words of 2003:\
embedded\
blog\
SARS\
spam\
taikonaut\
Bushism\
allision\
recall\
Middangeard\
celibacy YourDictionary.com has released their Top Word Lists of 2003: the Top Ten Words of 2003, Top Ten Personal Names of 2003, Top Ten Youthspeak Words, Bonus Youthspeak Phenomenon of Note, Top Phrases of 2003, 5 Top Mispronunciations by President Bush in 2003, Best New Product Names, Worst New Product Names, Top Enron Inspired Words, Top Internet Words Moving into Widespread Use, Top Sports-related Words, and Top Word Trends in Pop Music Names.

Most of the words and terms in the lists I’d heard before, though there were a few exceptions (Poolife?). I thought this bit at the very end was especially cool, though…

Most frequently spoken word on the Planet:

1. OK Still the most popular word in languages around the world. “OK” originated in a joke in the 1830’s, spelled “oll korrekt” in Boston newspapers, the joke being, both words were incorrect. It became so popular, that it was soon abbreviated to simply “O. K.” Despite its popularity, the word would have fallen by the wayside had not Martin van Buren, called “Old Kinderhook” for being born in Kinderhook, N.Y. used it in his presidential reelection campaign of 1840. So don’t “misunderestimate” the impact of presidential usage on the growth of our vocabulary. It is also spelled “okay.”

(via Scoble)

Bonus list: In the comments to Scoble’s post, Raymond Chen pointed out Merriam-Webster’s top 10 words of 2003, as determined by how frequently they were looked up on the online dictionary:

  1. democracy
  2. quagmire
  3. quarantine
  4. matrix
  5. marriage
  6. slog
  7. gubernatorial
  8. plagiarism
  9. outage
  10. batten

Talk about geek heaven!

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The 'Glow Grave'

I just stumbled across this while perusing the Ship of Fools’ 12 Days of Kitchmas (which is well-worth visiting in itself), and just cannot get over this item: the ‘Glow Grave’ — a stainless-steel grave marker complete with an LCD display that can be hooked into a PC interface to change the epitaph whenever you want!

I can’t. Stop. Laughing.

All I want to do is put a motion detector or pressure sensor on one of these things and hook it into a computer attached to the display so that it can dynamically react to people coming by to visit the grave site. Once it detects someone standing at the grave site, the screen would suddenly start displaying messages from the dear departed…

“I see you!”
“Hey, buster, you’re on my head.”
“It’s hot down here!”
“I knew it — God uses a Mac.”
“Help! There’s no air!”
“These worms really itch.”
“God is a woman after all!”
“You’re next.”

When snow in Anchorage makes the news…

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…you know it’s been coming down pretty heavily. Just another reason why I’m glad I left Alaska!

All over town, people dug out Monday morning, moving 7 to 11 inches of new snow that had fallen since Sunday night. It was the sixth day in a row with significant snow, amounting to about 2 feet since Dec. 17 and more than 20 inches since Friday.

Sunday’s snowfall set a record of 5.3 inches — measured near the airport — for Dec. 21. The old record was 3.1 inches, set in 1954.

[…]

City crews had been working 24 hours a day with 58 graders, blowers and sanders since 4 a.m. Friday, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich said Monday. Even without more snow, it would take more than a week to catch up.

(via Dad)

NYPD cop busted for blogging

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A NYPD police officer is under investigation because of what he wrote on his weblog. However, where when I landed in hot water due to my blog it was due to a single stupid mistake, this guy appears to have been bragging about grossly abusing his position as an officer of the law.

A Brooklyn cop is being investigated for Internet postings in which he brags about beating suspects, writing phony tickets and ignoring calls to his precinct.

The officer, identified by Internal Affairs investigators as a patrol cop who works in the 75th Precinct, uses the pseudonym “Brooklynbacon” and posts his messages on a site accessible through Xanga.com.

Alongside pictures of motorcycle trick riders, naked women, photographs with comical captions and pictures of human oddities, he posts messages supposedly about his job and, in some instances, his own misconduct. Any one of the offenses he describes could cost him his job.

Either the guy is telling the truth (and therefore a disturbing mix of braggart, ass, and idiot), or it’s all a fiction playing off the popular perception of NYPD officers (in which case he’s just an ass and an idiot). Either way, the stories he posted are more than serious enough to warrant landing him in hot water.

(via Say Anything)

Tower ghost filmed

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story.ghost.ap.jpg

This may seem a bit off, this time of year — more appropriate for Halloween, perhaps — but the story fascinated me…

Closed-circuit security cameras at Hampton Court Palace, the huge Tudor castle outside London, seem to have snagged an ethereal visitor. Could it be a ghost?

“We’re baffled too — it’s not a joke, we haven’t manufactured it,” said Vikki Wood, a Hampton Court spokeswoman, when asked if the photo the palace released was a Christmas hoax. “We genuinely don’t know who it is or what it is.”

Wood said security guards had seen the figure in closed-circuit television footage after checking it to see who kept leaving open one of the palace’s fire doors.

In the still photograph, the figure of a man in a robe-like garment is shown stepping from the shadowy doorway, one arm reaching out for the door handle.

The area around the man is somewhat blurred, and his face appears unnaturally white compared with his outstretched hand.

“It was incredibly spooky because the face just didn’t look human,” said James Faukes, one of the palace security guards.

“My first reaction was that someone was having a laugh, so I asked my colleagues to take a look. We spoke to our costumed guides, but they don’t own a costume like that worn by the figure. It is actually quite unnerving,” Faukes said.

(via Prairie)

BlogDating

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Wandering randomly through the Seattle Weblogs Portal, I stumbled across a wonderful little story. A girl and guy meet, and as they don’t live terribly close together, rather than exchanging phone numbers, they exchange blog addresses. Later on, she has some time to kill…

From reading his blog, I’ve learned my nice guy is a heavy drinking angsty insecure agoraphobic cross-dressing DJ who watches too much television, writes poetry, and wants to be a philosophy professor when he grows up. :) But he is funny, and he did quit smoking.

Reading through that took about as long as your typical first date, but I learned a lot more than I would on the typical first date, during which everyone is on their best behavior. Much more efficient.

I wonder what sort of conclusions he’s currently drawing about me. :)

I like her sense of humor — and the gentleman in question responded quite well in her comments, too.

I have to admit, though, I do think that my favorite part of the whole post may be the comment likening exchanging blog addresses to “intellectually sleeping with one another on the first date.”

Nothing wrong with a little mental nookie!