I think I’ve found a Christmas gift for my 3 year old son. I’m certain he’d love the Toilet Monster. Watch the monster in action here.

Independent Sources has a hilarious look at 10 of the worst company URLs. Looking for a therapist? Try http://www.therapistfinder.com. Full list here.

I finally got around to watching Elizabethtown. Cameron Crowe always uses a lot of music. But I’m glad he does because it introduced me to this great song from Tom Petty called “It’ll All Work Out”.

[audio:workout.mp3]

I walked into Fred Meyer tonight and went straight to the magazine rack. Kim hates when I do that, but she wasn’t with me tonight. I noticed the large section of magazines had been organized into 3 main areas separate from the others. The first group included car, computer and finanical mags. The second group included health and beauty and men’s magazines like GQ and Maxim. But the third group was the most interesting. It included a large selection of childrens magazines along with the paintball and gun mags.

It’s funny how stores like Fred Meyer make an effort to separate the kids magazines from the GQ, Maxim and Cosmo, but have no problem putting them right next to magazines with pistols and rifles on the cover. Would you rather keep your kids away from the sexy covers of female models or sexy weapons?

You’ve probably heard this sportscaster utter the famous phrase. He went on Letterman and mentioned that he’d been saving the phrase for the right time. He picked the perfect time to during a near flawless sportscast.
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I can’t stand keeping track of programs or games that come on CD-ROM. They get left out, scratched and misplaced. If you own a program or game that has to be in your CD-ROM drive in order to work I’ve found a nifty solution. This will allow you to create an image of your CD programs which are stored on your local drive. So now, instead of fumbling for the right CD someone around your house, you can using Daemon Tools to emulate a CD-ROM drive and mount images of your programs and games.

1. Download LCISO Creator
2. Put the program or game CD in your CD-ROM drive
3. Launch LCISO Creator and click “Create ISO”
4. Create a folder on your local drive to store the soon to be created ISO file
5. Now download a program called Daemon Tools
6. Install Daemon tools (be careful to install only core program files)
7. You’ll probably need to reboot your machine before or after installation
8. Run Daemon tools which you should now see in your system tray (red with lightning)
9. In system tray, right click on icon and chose Virtual CD/DVD/Device 0/Mount Image
10. Find ISO folder you create and select the ISO.
11. The program will not think it’s been loaded into your CD-ROM.
12. You can now launch your game or program from the start menu or sometimes by clicking on virtual CD-ROM drive in Windows Explorer

Oh for coolness. I love coming across a simple tip that speeds up my connection to the net without any software. By using OpenDNS you can speed up your connection and add some cool features. You just change your DNS to point to the following DNS server at either the local machine our router level:

* 208.67.222.222
* 208.67.220.220

If you step by step instructions checkout their website.

I’ve been listening to a number of very good podcasts lately. Here’s a list of my favorites which I’ve kept on my iPod for a number of months now.

1. This Week in Tech – Consistently the podcast I look forward to most.
2. IT Conversations – Lots to chose from here.
3. Inside the Net – Very good interviews of leaders in tech
4. The Onion Radio News – If you like the website, you’ll love this podcast.
5. Business Week Cover Story – Wide array of subjects focused on cover story of the week.
6. ESPN Radio Dan & Keith – This guys are hilarious even if Keith is a bit arrogant at times.
7. The Body Odd – MSNBC health editor chats with the wacky authors of “Why do men have Nipples”
8. Mitch in the Morning – Seattle sports radio morning host has some great interviews.
9. Slate’s Spoiler Specials – An irreverent look at the movies.
10. NPR – Koppel in the News – A familiar and reasonable voice discusses latest news.

I like how the old school mouse’s 3 buttons match the stripes on the show. Sweetness!
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Over at IGN, they review games for every system imaginable. I went through the ratings for the major platforms including Playstation, Playstation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Gamecube, Dreamcast and N64. There are only two out of hundreds of games on all these consoles that earned a perfect score of 10. One of the games I would have guessed. I would have thought that either Gran Turismo 2 (9.8) or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (9.9) would have scored a 10.

But the only two games to earn a 10 are Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the N64. I’m not much into the fighting games but remember being blown away the first time I saw Soul Calibur. It was so much better looking than anything else at that time. And has any game since Ocarina been released with such high expectations still exceeded them? In my opinion, it’s the best console game ever released. It’s still the game by which all games are measured when I chat with friends who are console freaks. The first time I played Ocarina I got sucked into it’s world for days. It’s an amazing game even today.