Tuesday, November 8, 2011

TOP 5 Ways to Torture K.C.

If you've ever wanted to find out my deepest, darkest secrets, these are the TOP 5 most useful things to threaten me with - all 5 of them send shivers down my back just thinking about them!



#5 - Drill to Kneecap

Slowly drill your way through my kneecap until I give in. It doesn't matter what size bit you use. I'll probably give in before you even have it turned on.



#4 - Rusty Cheese Grater

Imagining you using a rusty old cheese grater to slowly shred you way through my epidermis gives me the heebie jeebies!



#3 - Needle in Eyeball

I can't imagine facing a needle coming ever closer to my eyeball. I barely made it through Lasik surgery! I can't imaging what that or a needle would feel like without any kind of numbing...



#2 - Paper-cuts

These would have to be made with manila folders, and focused around the webbing on fingers & toes, under the tongue, and in the corners of lips



#1 - Fingernails Ripped Out

Ugh. Can't even imagine the pain. It hurts bad enough to get a hangnail, but to have your whole nail slowly pulled out... Ouch!

Monday, April 11, 2011

TOP 5 Worst Characters in the Chronicles of Narnia (BBC)

If you've never had the pleasure of experiencing the BBC's 1988 version of C.S. Lewis' Chronicle of Narnia, I honestly can't tell you that you are missing much. Unless you are a die-hard Narnia fan, or you like to MST3K terrible movies, I'd recommend staying away from this one. If you have seen the films then perhaps you'll enjoy this re-cap on the TOP 5 worst characters from the series:

EDIT: Since I found so much material on this TOP 5, I've added captions to each video to let you know what parts you should watch.


Reepacheep

Reepacheep is a very loyal and brave mouse. He is small, but he feels like he can take on the world. Much like any kind of rat dog. He also has the most epic exit from the film, as seen in the 2nd video.

(6:01 - 6:22)

(5:20 - 6:25)



Mr. Beaver

Mr. Beaver helps the kids along their way to Aslan. He speaks with a lisp and is one of the creepier animals in the series.

(4:57 - 6:35)
I love the fact that his "token" looks like a wadded up piece of used toilet paper. And you gotta love the reaction of all the kids after hearing about Aslan!

(3:13 - 3:40)
SPOKEN WITH SUCH PASSION!!



Maugrim - Wolf Captain of the Secret Police

The one good thing about Maugrim is he is dependable - you can always count on him to growl, bark, or howl every time he appears on screen.

(7:18 - 8:00)

(7:32 - 7:39)

(3:52 - 5:00)



Lucy Pevensie

It will always be a mystery to me why they chose this girl to play little Lucy in the series. I mean the enormous overbite is bad enough, but the lisp just makes it worse. A lot of the time you can't really even understand what she is saying!

(4:45 - 5:00)

(AS MUCH AS YOU CAN STAND)
This scene has been the topic of much debate - at 0:40 what does Lucy say?
"In the middle of the woods" or "In the middle of the forest"?
I don't think we'll ever know for sure...

(1:20 - 2:15)

(2:00 - 3:00)

(4:40 - 5:25)

(1:36 - 1:50)

(4:42 - 5:00) & (8:10 - 9:00)
I think Lucy forgot part of her lines on the first segment. And if you ask me, Aslan is enjoying having those girls on his back way too much.



The White Queen/Witch

The White Queen shouts. A LOT. She is also a witch, and it can be somewhat humorous watching her use her magic.

(1:57 - 3:00)

(5:22 - 6:15)
I truly believe that her magic is strongest when her eyes are open widest.
Oh and by the way, I cooked up my own Turkish Delight one time, and it isn't nearly delicious as this kid makes it out to be!

(6:22 - 7:55)
Is she lip-synching? I love how all of here slaves are homely midgets.

(6:23 - 7:00)

(1:45 - 2:45)

(6:12 - 7:30)

(9:41 - 9:59)
Words escape me...

That's all folks!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

TOP 5 Building Competition Runs

My work had a Building Competition a few weeks back, and I wanted to post some of the most interesting runs from the event. Here are the TOP 5 Building Competition Runs (the rules and the video of my team's run and the winning run can be seen at the link above):

#5 - "The Slackers"

This was a design by my friend Devin. It failed on the first run, so he modified it for the 2nd run to imitate another design (see #1 on this list). That failed as well.

1st run

2nd run

Technically we had up to 2 minutes to get it to cross the finish line (of course Devin had to wait the full 2 minutes), but I gave up after 30 seconds.

#4 - "Helium Lift"

This team used day-old helium balloons to reduce weight from the duck and "float" it to the finish line. It kinda worked, but they were disqualified from their second run.

1st run

2nd run

#3 - "Balloon Bounce"

This team simply put the duck INSIDE the balloon and then blew it up! It worked pretty well, but was a little floppy and that ended up slowing it down. They were also disqualified on their 2nd run. One of our brainstorms matched this idea using the giant punching balloons, but it turned out those were too easy to jump over the wall as well.

1st run

2nd run

#2 - "Stairway to Heaven"

This was the most unique design. They created a huge tower as tall as the ceiling that would basically reach all the way to the finish line when it fell over and spit out the duck. It worked really well, but their aim was off on the first run. Then everyone realized this broke the "no part of the vehicle left behind" rule, so for their second run they just put the duck in a ball.

1st run

2nd run

#1 - "Sled Parachute"

This was a submission from a student at the local high school. He was in 2nd place for the majority of the day until we bumped him into 3rd on our last run. His 2nd run didn't make it when his "parachute" got trapped in one of the fans.

1st run

2nd run

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

TOP 5 Blogging Mistakes

Everyone is blogging these days. Some of us have been doing it for years, and others are new to the hobby. Whether you are a veteran or a rookie to the blogging scene, these are the TOP 5 Blogging Mistakes that you want to watch out for:

#5 - Meaningless Titles
Why invest a lot of time writing a great post, only to slap on a crappy title and click "Publish"? I'll be honest - when I'm on a blog and see a title for another post that sparks my interest, I almost always click on it. Don't short-change yourself by not putting as much thought into your title as you do your post.



#4 - Revealing Personal Information
Have you ever mentioned your home address on your blog? Or talked about upcoming vacation plans? This can pose a serious security risk to your home as someone now knows where you live and when you will be out of town. And even if you haven't ever mentioned your address you should be aware of something called GeoTagging. Many phones and cameras have this feature which imprints the geographical information of where the picture was taken into the picture. So say if you were to take a picture of your kitchen and post the picture on your blog, you suddenly could have just revealed the location of your house without even realizing (granted it would take someone to know about GeoTagging and how to extract those details). Fortunately there are ways to turn this off in most cases, but it is something you definitely should be aware of.



#3 - Meaningless Posts
Too many times I have seen people try to use their blog like Twitter. There are several blogs that I used to check regularly, but now avoid because all they posted was fluff. If you find yourself constantly blogging about what you are currently doing (or just did), you might be better off tweeting it on Twitter.



#2 - Irregular Posting
Nothing is more frustrating than checking a friend's blog day after day only to have months go by without seeing a new post. I'm definitely guilty of this one too. We're all busy, but if you hope to have a good viewing base, you have to post regularly and consistently.

Also - don't apologize for not posting. It's like apologizing for crying in church :)



#1 - Marking Your Blog As Private
Making it difficult for your readers to get to your blog is the best way to keep viewers away. I check my friends' private blogs way less often than I do the public ones. Blogs are supposed to be like a press release - they should be available to the whole world. You shouldn't be putting private stuff on there in the first place (see #4). The only reason (in my humble opinion) that you should make a blog private is if you want to have some sort of online journal that is for your eyes only (i.e. you don't want any viewers). Otherwise just go create a Facebook page if you want to post semi-private information; it's easier to control who has access and you don't have to inconvenience your viewers with yet another login. If you are concerned about the types of comments people leave there are tools for that too! You can restrict who is able to leave a comment, or you can even choose to approve all comments before they appear on your blog.

So are you guilty of any of these mistakes? Or do you know of other mistakes you've made or seen others make? Leave a comment with any details you'd like to share!