The new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight" has been filming in Chicago and today they blew up "Gotham General Hospital". Playing the part of the hospital is the old abandoned Brach's Candy factory on the west side of Chicago.
About 150 Chicago locals gathered around to watch this building get demolished Batman style, and the Chicago Tribune was there to capture the crowd's response. See if you notice anything particularly hilarious:
I'd say that rivals the response of the Zombie Kid on the humor scale. Too bad there wasn't a video to go along with it. You can check out the entire article here if you don't believe me.
Who is Lasse Gjertsen? Beats me. I don’t know where he’s from, who does his hair, or even how to pronounce his name. But I’m not a Lasse Gjertsen expert...I’m just a fan.
Lasse has put together some quality videos, but before I even try explain the technique behind it, you should just see one for yourself.
Hyperactive by Lasse Gjertsen
Pretty crazy, huh? Just hope you were wearing headphones if you’re at work right now.
What you just saw was not necessarily beat boxing or stop motion animation, but just really good editing. I assume that Lasse filmed himself making all the various noises in one long take. He then (probably) took that video and cut it down into small snippets so that he had a bunch of small audio-visual samples to work with. Then all you need is Final Cut Pro (or other timeline video editor), a few hours of free time, and bunch of talent. The process may be simple, but it is in no way easy to pull off.
Just when hundreds of copycat videos began appearing on YouTube, Lasse pulled a Steve Jobs: When the competition starts to catch up, release something new that blows them out of the water. And I‘d say he did just that:
Amateur by Lasse Gjertsen
If you want to download the audio from this video it can be found on Lasse’s Norwegian Website. (So I guess I DO know where he’s from) Just click “Lytt” to listen and “Last ned” to download.
Hope you’ve enjoyed, and if you have any more Lasse fun facts feel free to share them in the comment board.
I have many good things to say about Firefox, but first I'll offer a chunk of Wikipedia's definition:
The developers of Firefox aimed to produce a browser that "just surfs the web"[10] and delivers the "best possible browsing experience to the widest possible set of people." The main features included with Firefox are tabbed browsing, incremental find (via the Find toolbar), Live bookmarking, an integrated download manager, and a search system. The user can customize Firefox with downloadable extensions, a variety of different themes, and many advanced preferences not present in the Options dialog that are accessible via the about:config page.
My personal definition of Firefox is:
A much better way to experience, and make the web your own compared to Internet Explorer.
If you're still using Internet Explorer to view the web, I feel sorry for you. It's slow, susceptible to viruses, and just plain boring. Do yourself a favor and download Firefox by clicking the link below.
Although I'm primarily a Google man, I really like the changes that Ask has been making to their search services.
Ask
Here we have the Ask homepage with it's list of search tools on the right hand side including: Images, News, Blogs, etc. I personally think it looks cleaner than the Google homepage, and they offer some nice options to narrow or expand your search.
Ask X
Next we have Ask X, and no this isn't Ask Afterdark (although the grey background is pretty sexy). Ask X is Ask's "Sandbox" for playing with and testing new ideas in search. Thanks to Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) this engine is also more interactive than your usual Google search. That being said...
How do the results look:
Google
I did a search for "Monty Python", and we can see Google's straight forward results: Organic listings on the left, and paid listings on the right. Options for images, video, news, and more can be found by clicking at the top of the screen. Sure it gets the job done, but where's the passion?
Ask
Here we can see how Ask adds a little more flavor to the results. On the right hand side they offer options to narrow or expand your search. The "related names" portion on the right lists the names of cast members from Monty Python for example. The top of the screen highlights Monty Python's classic movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and we can't forget to mention Ask's trademark binoculars that allow you to preview a website before you click.
Ask X
Ask X takes the results page to the next level by dividing the results into three separate panes. The left pane now acts as the navigation pane which includes the narrow, expand, and related names options. The center pane includes the organic results with paid results highlighted in blue. Another new feature includes the ability to bookmark a result and save it in "My Stuff" for future reference. Lastly the right pane takes your search and shows you some images, news, shopping, or whatever else is related to your query.
The Verdict?
Ever since Ask fired that prick Jeeves, they've been doing some awesome things with search! Both Ask, and especially Ask X, offer features that I'm sure will become the future of search engine results. Give it a try yourself, and let me know what you think. (and no, I don't work for Ask)
Since adding the MyBlogLog sidebar widget to my site, I’ve been going widget crazy!
So, what is a widget you might ask?
Widgets are snippets of embeddable code that can be copied and pasted from one website to another. Or, as the kids say, it’s wicked, cool blog bling for your website or myspace page. (No kids were harmed in the typing of the last sentence)
My new favorite widget is the Bitty Browser.
This sweet little chunk of embeddable code adds a small browser to your website, blog, or Myspace page (like picture in picture but for web browsing).
I’ve added one below that allows you to view the top videos this month on YouTube. Check it out:
As you can plainly see, the Bitty Browser is a fully functional web browser which can be set up to auto load content from a specific source such as Flickr, Yahoo, Google, ESPN, YouTube (like mine), or any website you want. So, if you’re looking for a wicked, cool widget to add to you site, be sure to check out Bitty Browser. If you already have 10-20 widgets on your site, chill out. Seriously.
With websites like Myspace, YouTube, and Digg I’m officially more social on the web than I am in real life. Keeping with that trend, I have added my blog to MyBlogLog.com.
MyBlogLog.com not only gives you the opportunity to see who reads this blog, (see Recent Readers on my side bar) but you can also access communities of readers/publishers with similar interests. I’ve made friends with users that like similar blogs, and I’ve even found a few new blogs to read while I’m having my morning coffee.
Check it out, and prepare to get social. My only question is, if I’m on a social website and having a beer in my apartment, am I really drinking alone?
