Interesting Blog

My friend Eugene is currently in Vanuatu with the Peace Corps. and he finally got around to sending me the address of his travel blog. I thought I'd share the link because, although you have no idea who he is, reading about life on a remote South Pacific island is kind of interesting.

http://peaceofchai.wordpress.com/

Well this is stupid...

The other day I randomly got the April 2009 issue of Blender in the mail. The address label said that my subscription will run until April 2010. The thing is, I didn't subscribe to Blender, I don't read Blender, and I have no interest in a Blender subscription. So rather than have to throw it in the recycling bin for the next 11 months, I decided to just go online and cancel my subscription.

My first stop was Blender.com. I mean, obviously they'll have some sort of subscription services link, right? No...no they don't. They don't have much of anything useful on there. I didn't even make that URL a hyperlink because I don't recommend that anyone actually go to Blender.com. It's like Myspace and blogger had a baby...a talentless, ugly baby.

But I digress. Anyway, Blender.com didn't get me any closer to canceling my subscription, so I decided to leaf through the magazine to see if the masthead would have any answers. And answers it had. "For subscription inquiries, please visit us at blender.com/customerservice."

Perfect, that's exactly what I wanted to find. Let's go on over to the customer service page...

That's it... that's the entire Blender.com/customerservice website. Two sentences amid a sea of white space. They couldn't even bother to put up a picture of a Maxim or a sad-faced Blender. And why the hell would they send out unsolicited year-long subscriptions to a magazine that's defunct? Did they just need to get rid of all of their remaining stock?

The day before my issue of Blender arrived, the first of my random year-long subscription to Rolling Stone showed up. I really have no interest in Rolling Stone either, but it did have this great article.

update: About two weeks after receiving my April 2009 issue, I received the March 2009 issue. Apparently now they're working their way through their back catalog.

Caloric Porn

This site makes we want to vomit and jump up and down with delight at the same time. It's nothing but pictures of sweet, sweet, disgusting excess.

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

The Meat Ship

Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheeseburgers

Secret code in plain sight

I'm sure you've seen the little yellow numbers on the backs of your bills a thousand times, but did you know they're actually code? I just learned about the EURion constellation and I think it's fascinating.

"The EURion constellation is a pattern of symbols found on a number of banknote designs since about 1996. It is added to help software detect the presence of a banknote in a digital image. Such software can then block the user from reproducing banknotes to prevent counterfeiting using colour photocopiers."

And it's not just our money either - the constellation appears on the currency of 39 different countries. Who knew?

Well this is counterintuitive

A few weeks ago I was staying at a conference center outside of DC and I noticed the firefighter's operation instructions were a bit odd. I guess they don't want just anyone figuring out how to close the door...

American Politcal Party Affiliation

I found this pretty interesting. Gallup just released the results of a national poll tracking political party affiliation by state. I'll let the graphic speak for itself, but if you want more details, click on the link above.

Who knew you could have so much fun with zipcodes?

This is a cool visualization of zipcodes. Check it out...

Can you name the 100 most commonly used words in the English language?

As a follow-up to my how many countries can you name? post, here is can you name the 100 most commonly used words in the English language?

Give it a try

Getting back to my roots

It's been a while since I've posted anything, but only because I was trying to protect you. I don't have anything relevant to say, so I've said nothing at all. Then I got a wrong number today and decided to get back to my blogging roots... posting inane commentary and slightly humorous stories. So without further ado, back to the irrelevance...

Earlier today I got a phone call from an unknown Columbus number. Since unknown Columbus numbers are almost always a wrong number, I ignored the call. This person left a voicemail though, so I thought for a moment that I actually knew them. Nope - better. Some woman called me to respond to a wrong number call she received. But she didn't just call back to say that the original caller had dialed the wrong number. No, she also wanted to complain a little about how people keep calling her with the same wrong number. So she dialed a wrong number, in response to a wrong number, to complain about a wrong number.

And thanks to youmail, I have an mp3 of said call to share...