Facebook Movie Parodies – Thumbs Up
Update: Added the eBay movie
So the Facebook movie (aka The Social Network) is coming out soon. The official preview came about a month ago, and within the next few weeks, parodies for the other major social networks (YouTube, Twitter, and MySpace) were made. Here they are all in one spot for your enjoyment:
Facebook – The Original
YouTube
MySpace
And the MySpace movie trailer (WordPress wont let me embed it)
eBay
Which one is your favorite?
Thumbs Down – Worst Website of All Time???
Check out the website for Yvette’s Bridal and Formal shop (http://yvettesbridalformal.com/). Is this the worst website of all time?
Dumb Questions – Thumbs Down
Have you ever been asked a dumb question where the answer could easily be found if the person Googled it? Use Let Me Google That For You to give them a snarky reply.
For example, if someone asks you “Where is Haiti?” send them this link in resply: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=where+is+haiti. It then plays a short animation showing how the question-asker could have found the information himself.
You can generate these “helpful” links by going to the lmgtfy.com homepage.
Chore Wars – Thumbs Up
When I was like eight years old, my mom bought a Lion King themed dry-erase board where my she would write chores that needed to be done and my sister and I would get stickers on the board when we finished them. It was pretty much the only time in my life that I was a little excited about doing chores – but the fun factor of the dry erase board dwindled after two or three weeks. It is too bad that Chore Wars didn’t exist when I was a kid, because it would have worked a lot better than the dry erase board.
Chore Wars is kind of like Foursquare for household tasks, with World of Warcraft mixed in. The group leader (AKA the parent) creates different tasks that need to be done around the house. Each person doing the chores can log onto the site and claim the task once they have completed it. The person’s character receives experience points based on information that the parent designated when he or she created the task. Once a certain amount of experience points are accumulated, the person’s character can level up. The person gets assigned a class based on the types of chores they complete. For example, by doing a lot of chores that require strength (vacuuming, gardening, etc) you could become a warrior, but by doing more intellectual tasks, you could become a wizard. There are also more intricate things to the game, such as combat with monsters and collecting gold and treasure.
Chore Wars gets kids excited about doing chores because it transforms boring and unpleasant tasks into a fun competition. As Tom pointed out in his last post, in the future, games are going to be everywhere. Chore Wars is just another example of where we are headed. From the testimonials on the game’s site, it looks like parents hare having huge success with it. I’m jealous that kids today are having a lot more fun doing their chores than I ever did.
Thumbs Up – Twilight: Three Wolf Moon
I have never seen or read Twilight, but I still find this parody trailer based on Three Wolf Moon internet sensation pretty funny. It also stars one of my new favorite comedians/actresses: Aubrey Plaza from Parks and Recreation.
(via Mashable)
Thumbs Up – The Hood Internet
Do you like mash-ups? Love listening to 100 songs in one album with Girl Talk or Super Mash Bros? Then you need to check out The Hood Internet. These guys put out great mash-ups all the time, and pretty regularly too. From Phoenix to Wale to Michael Jackson to Lauryn Hill to Bon Iver, these guys cover everything. And now you can sample the best of their work in one album, The Mixtape Volume Four.
First off, how can you say no to any album that had this cover. I would consider listening to Celine Dion if her album had a cover this awesome. Secondly, this album is just over an hour long, which is a bit longer than Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals and longer than all the Super Mash Bros. tunes I have. Now we come to the actual music, which is awesome. Most of the tracks are fairly short (there are 34 of them) so you get a similar effect to the fast paced nature of more well known mash-up artists. All in all, the album is upbeat and fun to listen to, as well as very eclectic in its selections. So check out this album, and if you like it, there’s 3 more mixtapes for you to enjoy too.
Thumbs Up – You Should Have Seen This
Did you just get the internet today? If so, Greg Rutter came up with the perfect list to catch you up to speed with viral videos and websites that you probably missed out on. It’s called: “Greg Rutter’s Definitive List of the 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced on the Internet Unless You’re a Loser or Old or Something.”
Even if you’ve been surfin’ the World Wide Web for years, there are a lot of classic videos that are worth another spin, and you may even find something on the list that you still need to check out. I highlighted my personal favorite videos with some orange stars: *****
01) Grape Stomp*****
02) Charlie Bit Me*****
03) Chocolate Rain
04) Dancing Baby
05) Post Secret
08) Numa Numa
12) Yatta
13) Star Wars Kid*****
14) Bubb Rubb
15) The Flying Spaghetti Monster
17) Homestar Runner*****
18) GI Joe Pork Chop Sandwiches
19) Fail Blog*****
21) All Your Base Are Belong To Us*****
22) Winnebago Man
23) We Like The Moon
25) Barney Vs. Tupac
26) Shining
27) Cute Overload
28) Rick Roll
29) Lazy Sunday
31) Powerthirst*****
33) Bert and Ernie Rap*****
34) Lady Punch
35) Leprechaun in Alabama*****
37) Boom Goes The Dynamite*****
41) Susan Boyle
43) Afro Ninja
44) Cop Shoots Himself In Leg In Classroom
45) Tron Guy
47) Laughing Baby
49) Exploding Whale
50) Take On Me The Literal Version
53) The Landlord
55) The Pet Penguin
56) Ms. South Carolina Answers A Question*****
58) Will It Blend
59) Spaghetti Cat
61) Little Superstar
62) Chad Vader
63) Pretty Much Everywhere It’s Going To Be Hot*****
64) I Like Turtles*****
67) Hawaii Chair
68) Aussie Party
73) Leroy Jenkins*****
74) Pinky The Cat
76) Sneezing Panda
77) Prison Inmates remake “Thriller”
78) Techno Viking
79) Ask A Ninja
80) Best Man Trips and Ruins Wedding
81) Best Wedding Toast Ever (Amy’s Song)
82) Kitten Surprise (how to break up a cat fight)
83) Katana Sword Infomercial Goes Wrong
84) Matrix Ping Pong*****
86) Angry German Kid (translated)*****
88) Ok Go “Here It Goes Again”*****
89) Battle at Kruger (lions vs. buffalos vs. crocodiles)
90) Daft Hands*****
91) Human Beatbox
92) Most T-Shirts Worn At Once
93) Zero G Dog
94) Cuppy Cakes Song
95) George Washington*****
96) Scary Maze Prank
97) Gay Referee
Thumbs Up – Free WiFi for the Holidays
Google announced yesterday that they will be offering free wireless at 47 airports across the United States between November 10 and January 15, 2010. The only catch is that when you log on to the internet, you are asked if you want to try some of Google’s services or donate to a charity. What a small price to pay for Internet! Oftentimes when I fly, I wish I could get WiFi at the airport to check my email and such, but it is almost never worth the cost, oftentimes in the $10 range, for a short period of time.
Other Internet movers and shakers will also be giving away free WiFi during the holiday season. Ebay will be offering free WiFi on Delta flights (the first page users see when they log on is the Ebay site – so they can do their holiday shopping while flying). Bing is offering free WiFi in certain airports and hotels, although they haven’t announced which ones specifically (as long as the user performs one search in Microsoft’s search engine). And Yahoo is giving away WiFi in New York’s Times Square for the next year.
Even though some cynics might bring up that these Internet giants are using free WiFi only to get more customers to use their services (and they are most definitely correct), it is hard for most people to be upset with free WiFi!
Below is a list of the airports where travelers can receive free WiFi from Google:
Austin (AUS)
Baltimore (BWI)
Billings (BIL)
Boston (BOS)
Bozeman (BZN)
Buffalo (BUF)
Burbank (BUR)
Central Wisconsin (CWA)
Charlotte (CLT)
Des Moines (DSM)
El Paso (ELP)
Fort Lauderdale (FLL)
Fort Myers/SW (RSW)
Greensboro (GSO)
Houston (HOU)
Houston Bush (IAH)
Indianapolis (IND)
Jacksonville (JIA)
Kalamazoo (AZO)
Las Vegas (LAS)
Louisville (SDF)
Madison (MSN)
Memphis (MEM)
Miami (MIA)
Milwaukee (MKE)
Monterey (MRY)
Nashville (BNA)
Newport News (PHF)
Norfolk (ORF)
Oklahoma City (OKC)
Omaha (OMA)
Orlando (MCO)
Panama City (PFN)
Pittsburgh (PIT)
Portland (PWM)
Sacramento (SMF)
San Antonio (SAT)
San Diego (SAN)
San Jose (SJC)
Seattle (SEA)
South Bend (SBN)
Spokane (GEG)
St. Louis (STL)
State College (SCE)
Toledo (TOL)
Traverse City (TVC)
West Palm Beach (PBI)
Time Warner Cable – Thumbs Down
Time Warner Cable has introduced a plan that will force customers that use large amounts of bandwidth to pay higher monthly rates. The plan includes a pricing tier, with packages allowing for 10, 20, 40, 60, and 100 gigabytes (GB) per month. Overage charges are expected to be $1/GB, capped at $75 per month – so if you go, say, 100 GB over your plan, you’ll still (only) be charged $75.
The internet provider is planning on introducing these pricing schemes in Rochester, NY, and Greensboro, NC, later this summer as a pilot program, so for now, most of the country is safe.
Why does Time Warner Cable think I should be penalized for using the Internet to its fullest extent? Why do they want to charge me more for providing the same level of service?
This plan strikes me as utterly ludicrous and logic-defying. Websites and Internet applications are becoming increasingly bandwidth intensive. Netflix, for example, now allows users to stream high definition movies and TV shows directly to their computers – someone streaming a few high definition movies per week could easily exceed Time Warner Cable’s 100GB/month ceiling. Soon, the needs for the average consumer will no longer be met by a basic 20GB/month plan from Time Warner Cable.
Ostensibly, this plan is intended to provide cheaper service to “casual” users (read: your grandmother) and to slow the growth of bandwidth consumption. Time Warner Cable seems to be in denial about the nature and direction of Internet applications – as bandwidth intensive applications, such as multimedia streaming, videoconferencing and gaming proliferate, users everywhere are going to be needing more bandwidth. This plan seems to be a coverup for their lack of foresight in neglecting to add additional bandwidth capacity.
The good news is that Time Warner Cable has somewhat eased off. The pilot was originally supposed to be introduced into Austin and San Antonio as well, but plans to impose the program on those two cities have been pushed back until October. Unless you live in Rochester or Greensboro, you’ll be fine for now. Just don’t get too used to streaming your favorite episodes of Battlestar Galactica in high definition every week.
