The Sesame Street Muppets from the 1970s and early 80s are so much better than the Sesame Street Muppets of today. The 70s/80s Muppets have more human characteristics. They having a charming sarcastic tone while the Muppets today are always happy-go-lucky boring duds.

What's worse? To be smug and let everyone know you're smug or to be smug and try to hide that you're being smug?

The reason I bring this up is that I was just thinking about the Chicago Cubs' two big stars in the mid to late 90s: Mark Grace and Sammy Sosa. We all know that Sammy Sosa was smug. But I always felt there was a certain smugness about Mark Grace that he tried to hide from the media.

It's rare for me to share videos on this blog. Videos require a solid commitment of time to view. But this Star Wars video is amazing. It's about a dozen or so short 5-10 second clips showing Star Wars planes and/or stars within the Earth's environment. It's incredibly well-made.

when you use the word, "sheesh", try saying "sheeshs" or "sheeshes" instead. "Sheesh" is a pretty silly word and "sheeshes" is even more silly. Give it a try some time.

"Do not crawl under the table when you are frustrated for you will bump your head leading to further frustration."

-erik maldre, 2008, The Wise Daddy
(when reading the quote, it is preferred to be read in the wise daddy accent)

I just watched Barak Obama's Democratic Party nominee acceptance speech. I stand by the idea that he will be a great leader of this nation. It was a powerful speech that directly confronted his opponents and also celebrated the American spirit. Obama will bring back hope to this nation and the world.

poster by Shepard Fairey

A full-size Star Wars landspeeder. I don't think I'd want to own one (Where would I put it?) But I'd love to take it for a drive.
It can go 25 mph.

oobject.com profiles ten fun camera hacks.

The list includes a meteor shower capturing rig, a camera that creates the most redeye possible, a russian matchbox camera, a kite-flown camera, a paper SLR camera, and more. Which is my favorite. I love the irony of a paper SLR. The matchbox camera is great, but nothing new. The meteor shower camera is just plain silly and that's what makes it so much fun. I, I, I can't pick a favorite.

I was looking up jobs and somehow I came across a job posting for an On-Air Meteorologist (WGN-TV CLTV). Could I be a weatherman? Maybe not after reading the job requirements.

Description
Purpose: Responsible for the preparation and presentation of the weather segments and associated computer weather graphics for broadcast on CLTV and WGN-TV. Must be able to handle multiple segments each hour according to the CLTV format. Must be able to provide live, breaking news coverage as weather events dictate.

Requirements
Degree in meteorology or equivalent related military or work experience required. AMS and/or NWA Seal of Approval preferred. Solid knowledge of state of the art graphics systems essential. Working knowledge of WSI Graphics system preferred. Thorough working knowledge of all numerical forecast guidance material distributed from the National Weather Service and other global meteorological agencies.

So the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics are over. It was a fun ride. What will I miss the most? I always enjoy the short 10 second segments of aerial footage around the Olympic venues and around the city with Olympic music in the background. I think that's been my favorite part of the Olympics since I was a little kid. I especially enjoyed the clips of the Bird's Nest. It's a instant classic. A world-class landmark.

fun with the Olympics
Who is it?

Click here for the answer.

fun with the Olympics
Who is it?

Click here for the answer. There's a hint in the comments section.

fun with the Olympics
Who is it?

Click here for the answer.

Here's a fun new series that honors the 2008 Summer Olympics. Guess who is in the blurred photo. Click here for the answer.

On Saturday I watched Estonia win the silver in the Double Sculls Men (rowing) on NBC.

1. Australia David Crawshay/Scott Brennan 6:27.77
2. Estonia Tonu Endrekson/Juri Jaanson 6:29.05
3. Great Britain Matthew Wells/Stephen Rowbotham 6:29.10

Estonia won silver by 1/20 second in a 6.5 minute race! They were going back and forth with the UK for the second half of the race. Australia had the lead all along. I noticed one of the Australian rowers emptied his water bottle before the race. That must've been their secret trick. If only Estonia had emptied their water bottles before the race.

How about that 100 meter butterfly men's final race? Michael Phelps won his 7th gold tying Mark Spitz for the most golds won in one Olympics. We all knew we were witnessing history as this race began. And we all said, "oh no!" as the race finished thinking Michael Phelps finished second. But the replay shows he won. I have the most definitive evidence available. I put my Tivo into slow motion to show that he clearly won. NBC had great footage, but they didn't do the slow-mo that I have. Please don't throw this video on twitter or anything like that. I want the video to remain discrete so that youtube won't pull it.

You can see that Phelps won starting at about the 30 second point in the video.

It's been almost a week into the Olympic Games and I'm getting pretty tired of watching swimming, beach volleyball, and gymnastics on NBC. It's time to mix things up.

We all marvel at how Olympic athletes can do what they do. Just about all the athletes are incredible human specimens. Let's have a new Olympic rule that every single athlete must compete in one event in a sport that they have never competed in before. That's right. You want to see Michael Phelps in Equestrian (or weightlighting as shown above)? How about everyone's favorite kayaker, Benjamin Boukpeti, in Judo?

Actual medals will be awarded. Golds, silvers, bronzes are available for those that want them. See, you most certainly get athletes like a Michael Phelps going through the motions in their bonus events. That's fine. If some people don't want another gold, then that's their prerogative. I can guarantee you that someone else in any given bonus event will be competing their brains out to get that gold. For this idea gives those that have no chance of medaling to actually get an Olympic medal. I'd love to see someone from Dijbouti get Olympic gold through the bonus event.

The entertainment value will be high for both fans and athletes. Some people will do surprisingly well and will impress fans and fellow athletes. And then there are those that will look like Joe Schmoe and show how truly human they are.

Exactly how will it be decided which athletes will compete in which sporting event? It will be random. I initially considering letting the athletes decide, but then you'd get athletes trying to pick sports similar to their own. Beach volleyballers will select indoor team volleyball and that would be kinda cool, but not cool enough. Each athlete will be randomly assigned a sport. During that selection process, athletes will not be asked to compete in an event that is within two days of the sport that they are at the Olympics for. Or perhaps it can work out that the athletes will compete in their bonus events after they have finished all their competitions. I'll let the Olympic brainiacs figure that one.

All this makes me want to become a citizen of Dijbouti and become an athlete in some random sport just so I could have the opportunity to win gold in my bonus event. I'd be hoping I'd get placed in something like badminton against some really slow and non-limber-like weightlifters.

Yesterday Michael Phelps won his 10th career Olympic gold medal. That's the most ever by an individual. Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis, Paavo Nurmi and Larissa Latynina have nine. Congrats to Michael. What a historic moment.

However, I was more excited when NBC showed all the cameras in the media section before Phelps' historic 200m butterfly race. Oh man. Look at all that glass. That's a million dollar stash of camera equipment.

One of the benefits of being unemployed is that I get to watch the Olympics during the day while I'm working on my portfolio stuff. Today I got to watch men's single kayak. It looked really grueling. The water raged monsterously while these guys navigated tightly around the checkpoints. My kayak would tip over in an instant. That's for sure.

Benjamin Boukpeti of Togo was the very last competitor to race. It was high drama. It looked unlikely that he would win the gold because Alexander Grimm of Germany had a huge 2.4 second lead over Fabien Lefevre of France (173.30 seconds). Boukpeti mastered the course and won the bronze with a 173.45 second finish. When he saw he placed third, he broke his oar on his boat in celebration. He had just won the very first Olympic medal for Togo! (Togo is a country in west Africa. It's in the armpit section of Africa.)

Now Benjamin was born and raised in France; which explains his very heavy French accent when he was being interviewed after the race. His dad is from Togo and Benjamin only visited Togo once as a small child. This kind of stuff is actually pretty annoying. He should have been competing for France. France got ripped. But I'm happy to see Togo get their first medal. I'm sure the people of Togo are enjoying it much more than France would have.

photo of Boukpeti courtesy of Reuters.
map courtesy of wikipedia commons.
collage courtesy of yours truly.

I stated my love for Olympic Judo back in the 2004 Olympics. So it was with great anticipation I awaited the 2008 Olympics Judo competition. And now you can watch all the footage online! A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

What do I love about Judo? It's like two siblings fighting. There's a lot of grabbing and arms flying around. Sometimes they end up on the floor grabbing at each other. And every once in a great while there's a dramatic flip. And then there's the judges who sit on the edge of the floor. I like to think they are the parents.

I just wish they allowed pushing and shoving in Judo. And they should have a door at the end of the floor so the loser can walk through it, yell at the other person, and then slam the door.

In the particular match shown in the image above, the French coach was screaming at the top of his lungs. It's funny to hear a Frenchman screaming. Usually the French talk in their civilized tones. Not this guy. He was like the third sibling trying to get a good fight out of the two.

Currently the comments left on this blog are not showing up. I'm looking into this problem and hope to have a solution soon. (and the nav bar is acting a bit funky as well).

I'm an Olympics junkie. I can't get enough of it. The next two weeks will be a lot of fun. Let's kick off the festivities with a look at the outfits worn by the Estonian and German Olympic teams seeing as I'm half Estonia and half German. I'm happy with what both countries were wearing.

ESTONIA
Just about all countries had two clothing options; one for men and one for women. Estonia did it differently. Each Estonian player had the option between three different colors for their tops. So we saw some Estonians wearing orange, some blue, and some yellow. The colors as a whole worked well together. It was a nice, vibrant, celebratory palette. The clothes were pretty basic which allowed the patternless colors to make the bold, refreshing statement without going overboard. And the men wore white pants while the women had white skirts which again served as a nice base for the colorful tops. All had some sort of white fedora which looked cool on some of the athletes and dippy on others. These hats were 10 times better than the stupid 1940s Italian gangster hats that the U.S. athletes were wearing. Ralph Lauren designed them and they looked stupid. They covered up the U.S. athletes' eyes. Upon watching (and photographing) the replay of the Estonian Olympians, I noticed that the material might have been some sort of semi-reflective plastic-type, rain-slicker like material. slick.

GERMANY
I Tivo'd the Opening Cermonies and haven't watched the entire Parade of Nations yet, but from what I saw it was clear that the Germans were the most playful in their entrance. Men were carrying women on their shoulders. Others where jumping in front of the camera like school kids. This is such surprising activity from Germans of all people. But I love it. Have fun. It's a time to celebrate. The German's clothing selection is a better representation of what the world knows of Germany. The clothes were very simple and elegant. Gray blazers and trousers for the men. Red blouses and white skirts for the women. No stupid hats. No crazy ties. Just very efficient, but classy.

I'm digging Fred and Friends' website. Yesterday, I blogged about Fred's "Peace of Cake". I'm a fan of Fred's "drip clips", too.

They also sell the tinsel tape and manhole mats previously covered on this blog.

hee hee. peace of cake.

Here's a bus shelter ad for the Treasury Casino in Australia was made from 7563 pieces of dice.

via core77

I came across this portrait of Claude Monet. It looks like he could be holding a croquet mallet. Ok, maybe not. But I like the idea of Monet playing croquet in Bombay on a Sunday.

A fly has been circling my head for the last 15 minutes. I am the Sun and the fly is pesky little Earth. I wish I could just shoot a solar flare at the fly and turn it to a crisp. Any time you have a fly circling your head, you must call it "Earthy, the pesky fly".

If you have plans on buying a macbook, just wait if you dare. Apple has told their retailers to stockpile four weeks worth of macbooks. That's a tell tale sign that new macbooks are coming.

I bought a brand new macbook a couple weeks ago. Just from following the rumor mill for the past few months I knew something would hit between September and January. However, I didn't want to buy the first gen of the new macbook and have to wait longer for the second gen to come out. Buying any first generation Apple product is risky business. I know. I bought the first gen G5 imac. Piece of junk. Anyone want to buy it from me for $100? Though my new macbook has a bad keyboard. The "p" key on my new macbook only works if i hit it relatively hard.

So let's say an isolated lot of land is developed for residential use. The ground is completely weed-free, just theoretically speaking. No weeds whatsoever. Houses are built. Sod is laid. People move in. Lawns are mowed. People go about their lives. Now, will weeds ever find their way into this community? Is is possible for the lawns in this community to live without weeds? A man can dream.

Last week I mentioned the famous Schaumburg, Illinois webcam. Well guess what. I was in Schaumburg doing a survey tonight and I visited the Schaumburg webcam. That's me in the photo.

View live footage of the Schaumburg webcam here.