• We haven’t done a Flash Game of the Day in a while, have we?  How about a puzzle game called “Open Doors,” then?  I breezed through the first 7 levels.  Now I seem to be slightly stuck.  How embarrassing.

• How fair is Monopoly, mathematically?  (See also this link dump for more on Monopoly game play.)

• The “GigaPan” gives you enormous pictures you can zoom in on and pan across like you wouldn’t believe.  Here’s a panorama of Yankee Stadium from July 4th.

• J.J. Abrams’ “Fringe” will be aired as full fifty minute episodes, not the barely 40 minute episodes most dramas are today. That, alone, is enough reason to give it a chance. Abrams demanded it, and got it.

• Five years ago at Various and Sundry: A pretty cool Rubik’s Cube prank in NYC.

O.A.R.’s “All Sides,” available now

I just downloaded it through Amazon’s MP3 store. Can’t wait to give it a proper listen.

Am also not ashamed to admit that an awful lot of Pepsi points made this album free for me.

A proper review will no doubt follow in the week ahead. . .

You know what?  It’s not that eBay is dying.  It’s just that people would rather buy something on-line in ANY OTHER FASHION.  There are too many eBay horror stories, too many fees, and not enough good deals anymore.  If a service doesn’t give its clientele what they want and can’t give them an adequate level of safety and comfort, it’s going to go down.  I’ll repeat what I’ve said before: Burn, eBay, Burn.

And if that’s not enough for them, eBay is now busy shooting itself in the foot:

eBay has struck a deal with the Web retailer Buy.com that allows the company to sell millions of books, DVDs, electronics and other items on eBay without paying the full complement of eBay fees.

Unbelievable.  eBay can’t die soon enough. I just wish someone would start up a competitive website for when eBay finally dies. I know I’m not alone.

Halfway through another month, with a couple of promising releases:

• The Bank Job

Is Jason Statham in another movie every other week, or is it just me?  In any case, I don’t remember anything about this movie when it first came out at the beginning of the year, but the writeups I’m seeing about it now are promising.  Granted, it’s a movie set in the 70s, which is about my least favorite decade for movie settings.  But it’s supposed to be a fairly good one along the stylistic lines of “The French Connection” and other movies of the era.

The cover image above links to the special two disc edition, which includes a digital copy of the movie.

• Step Up 2 The Streets

I saw the first one.  In theaters.  It was my wife’s idea, of course. There were a lot of dance movies that summer, as I recall.

• Birds of Prey

It only lasted 13 episodes on the WB, but had a couple of redeeming qualities.  The actress they cast as Oracle was perfect from a visual point of view.  They really nailed the comic book character in the casting there.  That’s not something you can say too often.  (I thought George Clooney made for a great Bruce Wayne, though his Batman was lacking.)

Best Buy is including a comic book with your purchase, though I don’t know what it is.  It’s probably not from the classic Dixon/Land/Guice era, though.  Just a guess.

• College Road Trip

When did Martin Lawrence gain all that weight?

Next week: I’m very excited for “Spaced: The Complete Series.”

Commerce Bank recently updated their ATM menus.  It dawns on me now just how bad the user interface design is.  It may look more modern, with a slick graphical set of buttons to replace the old almost-DOS feel to the whole process.  But there are a couple of things that bother me.

First, the machine doesn’t hold your card while you’re doing a transaction. Now, you have to click a button confirming your transaction is done.  If you don’t, the next person walking up to the machine has access to your account and can just pull more money out of your account at will. (I haven’t tested this, but maybe — just maybe — you have to type in your PIN for each transaction?  I hope so.)
Second, I laughed out loud at the withdrawal system.  They tell you that you can only withdraw a dollar amount in  multiples of $20.  Some might question why the interface would then allow you to type in a number not in such an increment.  Wouldn’t an up/down arrow make more sense?

No, the thing that REALLY bothers me is that I have to type in the dollar amount I want to withdraw INCLUDING the cents amount.  I’ve never in my life seen an ATM machine that gives you spare change.  Why do I have to type the cents?  Why give people the option of something they can never get.  And you have to do it.  If you don’t, that $140 you’re trying to get will look to the machine like $1.40 and be rejected.

Wouldn’t it be simpler if you only had to punch in the dollar amount?  Or are they afraid that you, the simple user, are so used to their nonsensical system by now that disrupting it like that would be a bother?   I don’t think the ATM would dispense $2000, so it’s not like someone might accidentally overdraw their account while trying to get out $20.

I’m staying with the greatest sister-in-law and family ever.  The accomodations are more than comfortable.  The children adore me. The refrigerator is fully stocked.

And any purchases they may wish to make for birthday purposes for their daughters can be done via the Amazon Search link in the right column of this website.  Just over there ——>

(This post has nothing to do with the fact that they found my blog this weekend. Honest.  Riiiiight.)

The wife and I are moving out of the one bedroom condo we’ve called home for the past few years.  (The wife has been here four, I’ve been here nearly two.)  We won’t move into our bigger and better home for a couple of weeks, but I am afraid I need to take a vacation day today.

Please, talk amongst yourselves in the comments below.  Give me all your harrowing moving stories.  By the time I read them, mine will be over and I won’t get nervous from reading about how bad it might get.

Thanks, and have a good weekend.  I’ll see you back here on Monday!

• Sometimes, the technicalities of rules can lead a sports team to do funny things. This 1994 soccer game takes the cake! It ends in a team scoring on itself in order to win.  Fascinating!

• Is this the look of the new MacBook Pro?

• Fans of reality TV are well aware of how aware the shows’ contestants are of the fact that they’re on reality shows.  Very meta, don’tcha think?  It also means the cliches have crept up.  Note this video of “I didn’t come here to make friends” pronouncements.   I hope someone follows this up with a video of losing contestants saying how happy they are to walk out as themselves, and not lose their souls to win.  ::sigh::

• Mike Tyson’s Punch Out — as played with Donkey Konga bongo drums.  Cool!

• Now THAT is a sandstorm! It looks like something out of “The Mummy.”

• Squirrels hide in the darnedest places.

• Is Mercedes phasing out gasoline in the next seven years?!?  Seems very quick, but I suppose it’s possible. Gotta love modern technology!

• While we’re on the topic: Solar-powered Prius. The ultimate vehicle?  Right now, they’d only power the air conditioning.  But, hey, it’s a start.

On this week’s episode of “Jon and Kate Plus Eight,” Jon uttered the phrase, “until they graduate college.”

Kate instantly scolded him for “leaving out the preposition.”  She prefers “graduate from college.”

Then, in her next sentence, she said she “could care less.”  Then she repeated it, “I could care less.”

So, to recap, she scolds her husband for leaving out [sic] a preposition that didn’t need to be there, and then uttered a completely meaningless sentence that’s a common grammatical faux pas without being castigated one bit for it.

She has it so good. . .

I’ve been diabetic for 21 years now.  I was WAY ahead of the curve on this one!
Diabetes rates skyrocket among Americans, CDC says - CNN.com

The number of Americans with diabetes has grown to about 24 million people, or roughly 8 percent of the U.S. population, the government said Tuesday.
The number of diabetics, who often use insulin pumps, has risen about 3 million over two years, says the CDC.

A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on data from 2007, said the number represents an increase of about 3 million over two years. The CDC estimates another 57 million people have blood sugar abnormalities called pre-diabetes, which puts people at increased risk for the disease.

But the thing is, mine is genetic.  This epidemic mostly stems from people who don’t exercise enough or eat all of the wrong foods.  They’re going to see the bulk of spending done on fixing them, while those of us who are just stuck with it from birth will get nothing.

Life’s so fair, isn’t it?

Oh no he didn’t: Microsoft man dubs Wii a novelty - Nintendo Wii Fanboy

[A Microsoft executive] compared Wii buyers to “the same people that buy a karaoke machine,” and suggested that the console was simply “something [to] break out when people come over, and it’s maybe a fun thing […] They’re not really buying it for games, they’re just buying it as a novelty.”

It really is sad that they still don’t get it. The Wii has outsold the 360 every month save one for the last 18 months or so, and all MS can do to lick their wounds is say, “It’s a fad.”

Fads don’t last TWO Christmas seasons, coming on very strong for a third.  Sure, it’s a different type of gamer entering the market for the Wii.  That has to scare Microsoft.  They failed to broaden their market, so someone else did it for them without MS having a plan to capitalize on it.  Instead, MS seeks to marginalize the new or returning or casual gamers.

Screw you, 360.  I don’t need you.

(Now, comic fans, sub in Marvel/DC for “Microsoft” and manga for “Wii.”  Interesting.)

• The most amazing stat I’ve seen in a while: 62% of dial-up users have no interest in upgrading to a broadband connection.  In related news, 62% of horse owners want nothing to do with the internal combustion engine.

• Video of 100% score on the hardest Guitar Hero song.  Looks painful.

• Download Firefox 3 builds optimized for the Mac.

• Michael Bay’s rejected “Dark Knight” script.

Nearly random thoughts after watching the Pixar movie “Ratatouille” this weekend:

I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’m not going to flinch at the sight of an invasion of rats in a kitchen.  The lead rat is cute.  His brother is lovable.  His father is respectable.  But to see dozens of them swarming around food?  I can’t buy into it.

That said, it’s a great movie. It all fits together, even if most of it was (like most Disney movies, honestly) easy to predict from a very early stage.  The ending, most satisfyingly, was not something I predicted, though.  That took me by surprise, made a lot of sense, and definitely sealed the movie with a happy ending worth enjoying.

Loved the “Lifted” short film.  This was the first I saw it.  I love silly slapstick, and an alien who can’t drag a human out of bed and into his ship will make me laugh every time. I think it was the bold brassy music that really sold it, though.  Every time the music turns into a soaring John Williams riff, you expect something dramatic and awe-inspiring.  And that’s when the alien hits the wrong switch.

The biggest surprise of the movie for me: The true break-out star of the movie is an Augie!  Auguste Gusteau (nice punny name) rocked!

Was enjoying the credits, but thinking that the painted style looked somehow familiar.  I had forgotten that Scott Morse worked on this movie until I saw his name in the credits.

Something for Pipeline: There’s a bold image at the end of the credits, basically promising that the movie was done without shortcuts — no motion capture done here!  I liked that a lot, particularly given the past week’s “Alex Ross Ruined Comics” blogosphere debate.

Here’s what I’m excited about:

That’s the deluxe boxed set, which is the only one worth getting.

Interesting landscape this week:

• Batman: Gotham Knight

It’s the animated prequel to “The Dark Knight.”  Written by a bunch of comic writers.

• Superhero Movie

This is the superhero movie parody movie.  Somehow, it didn’t get sued by DC/Marvel for using their joint “superhero” trademart.  Still, it made almost $60 million worldwide.

• Jake and the Fatman: Season One

It’s my list.  I can include whatever I want.  And for some reason, I feel like mentioning this one.  Odd.

• Fastlane: Complete Series

If you’re a “Saved by the Bell” completist and you want to fill out your Tiffani Amber Thiesson collection after “Beverly Hills 90210,” here you go.

Next week: “Birds of Prey: The Complete Series”