Prank Calls Free: Courtesy of Google.

I'm sure many of you have seen this by now, but if you haven't, guess what feature Google just added to Google Maps? Well, if you search for any business with a provided phone number, you'll find that on any business in Google Maps, Google places a call link next to the phone number, which is under the business's address. When you click this link, the script will open, and prompt for your telephone number. Upon entering your telephone number, Google will call your phone, and the respective business's number will appear in your Caller ID. When you answer, you will hear "Connecting your call," and within seconds, you'll be connected to the business, for free, and Google will pay the bill for that call. While the paranoid Google-bashers among us may fear that Google will steal their phone numbers in their quest for world domination, there are those among us, who will still find this useful.


Now, this feature opens up two very exciting prospects. Naturally, I'll start with the more entertaining one. For all of you who this hasn't occurred to yet, you should realize by now, the simplicity of entering someone else's number into the dialog box, and having that business supposedly "call them." Think embarrassing store (need i say more?), or say, the athletic department of an university whose sports team your friend despises. Now, for the more practical one. Say you have a long-distance friend anywhere in the US, if you take a couple seconds, and make him a fake business like "Joe's Auto Shop," with his phone number, you can call him for free whenever you're in reach of a computer. While this may be a bit useless in this age of cellphones, Vonage, and Skype, it's still worth a try.

Oh, Windows Live Local has had this feature for a longer time, but you simply don't get the same level of satisfaction as you do with Google, you know what I mean?

So. happy prank calling, and remember, it's on Google.

Banning Stem Cell Research: Bush's Brightest Idea.

If you don't know me already, you'll come to find that I'm pretty strong about my political convictions, and my dislike of our current president. With this I bring you two videos, express my disapproval (to say the least) of Bush's single veto, the one to ban stem cell research: one serious, one not so serious. I'm sure when Bush is old, and suffering from some brain disorder that could have been easily cured had we been able to do stem cell research, he'll be secure in his infinite wisdom.







Needless to say, Michael Fox being the guy he is, I was a bit unsettled. I don't know about you, but we should do the best we can to help people like Michael. Too bad Bush doesn't want us too.

Wow: Way to ruin some little kid's Halloween.

It's a T-shirt.

Toyota: "Innovative" new advertising schemes.

Watching Toyota's new ad, I have honestly never been so scared in my life of owning two Toyota's. Watch it yourself, before I elaborate.



Not only does the idea of sitting in the car with random straight-faced, robot-like Japanese men scare me shitless; there's the fact that you have to sit in their laps, and have them wrap your arms around you, AND let them blow balloons at the general direction of your private regions. This just makes me want to hide in the corner with a blankie and a plastic fork.

Oh, and the disembodied-head/speaker things scare me too.

Google Earth: Dubya and Mel [Gibson] sitting in a tree.

I always thought some of the people in the US government were Nazis.

I have nothing more to say. See for yourself.

The Servant: Italy's Answer.

I'd like to use this post to introduce you to a band that's not so well known in the US. It's called "The Servant," and they're a band that's set in Italy but have risen to fame recently in England. Some of their songs are incredibly addictive, some of them are just downright eccentric, but I think you'll come to like them, especially the two below, called "Orchestra" and "Liquefy" respectively. They may be a little too soft-rockish for some of you, but I'd recommend you give them a listen. In fact, you can listen to all of their songs for free at their official site, under the "Sounds and Visions" tab. Enjoy.

"Orchestra" by The Servant



"Liquefy" by The Servant

Ohio: Thank you, come again.

I"ve done it. I found the guy I was looking for. I found Apu Nahasapeemapetilon (or at least his car), at a remote little Kwik-e-mart gas station in Bedford County, Ohio. My life is complete. Indians around the world are rejoicing for this discovery by eating smoked beef. devoutly worshipping their gods. If your next Dell computer service call, or next cab ride goes better than usual, you'll know why.

Line Rider: Drawing was never this fun.

A little Flash-based game premiered on Deviantart about a month ago, that involved nothing more than a white background, a simple line drawing tool, and a midget with a red scarf. That game is Line Rider, and it might possibly be the most addictive game I have ever seen, save for the big red button game. It's a physics based environment, where you draw a "virtual ski slope" for the midget with the sled, and you can draw lines, loops, slopes to end with the perfect landing. Pssh, who am I kidding? You're trying to hurt him as much possible. It's really pretty scary how much fun you'll have just knocking the crap out of this guy. So with no further ado, I bring you Line Rider.

Oh, and if you're not the creative type, watching these user-made videos on Google Video might be almost as entertaining.

Heroes: Primetime sci-fi at it's best.

This fall season, NBC premiered a new science-fiction show called "Heroes," about, you guessed it, superheros. They eventually have to team up and fight fate to save the city of New York. So you're thinking, this is going to be another lame "X-men meets Justice League" type thing. That was undoubtedly, exactly what I thought it'd be like. Guess I was wrong. Even though the theme of "superheroes" may be a bit cheesy at best, the intricate over-lapping storyline are enough to get anybody hooked. In short, if you like Lost, you'll like Heroes. In fact, who knows, Lost and Heroes may be in cahoots. It's on Mondays at 9PM on NBC, and you can watch the latest episode at their webiste at www.nbc.com/heroes. Check it out.

IE7: Nothing new here.

Internet Explorer 7 came out yesterday. Well, day before, if you consider Yahoo! jumping the gun with their branded version. Conclusion: Nothing you haven't seen in alternative browsers, but hell, at least it works.

All Microsoft adversity aside, the browser works pretty well. Here's a look:

It has tabbed windows now, a new view choice box in the bottom right corner, an integrated search box, and new "Vista-ish" buttons.  Other browsers have had this same features for ages now. Here's the one thing I do like about IE7. It comes with a feature called "Quicktabs" right out of the box, which is just what the foXpose Firefox extension does. It takes thumbnails of each of the tab and places them on a single page for you to choose from. Here's a look at the feature:

All in all, I'll have to admit that, if Firefox and Opera weren't around, I probably would have stuck to Microsoft's proprietary browser.

Update: Yup, I spoke too soon. It's Microsoft. There has to be something wrong. So yeah, turns out, IE7 doesn't play awfully nice with Blogger. Oh well.