echols:construct

Quandary:

I want to listen to the music from my iPod on my computer at work, but I don’t want to install iTunes and authorize another machine. All I want to do is play music directly from the iPod and bypass iTunes.

Hot-damn solution:

Pod Player from iPodsoft.

With an incredibly small, quick installation, Pod Player is ready to use in seconds. The interface is clean and extremely intuitive. Everything you need is brilliantly packaged into this free piece of software.

For your zero dollars, you’ll also get some clever iPod hacks and excellent iPod management tools. Pod Player allows you to extract songs to your hard drive as well – even preserving the ID3 info.

The guys at iPodsoft have done an excellent job with such a practical niche app.

Get Pod Player and love it. Then check out their other, equally intelligent offerings.

And don’t forget to donate.

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My failure to post lately is due in total to the fact that we’ve been transplanting our office from Louisville to West Knoxville for the last week. It has been one hell of a move, but definitely for the better.

Anyhow, that’s why I’ve been remiss. I know you feel neglected, so let me salvage the week with a lovely collection of links for you.

Get down with these jonx (as Mr. Smith says):

I) Install Vista, Buy Graphics Card (Wired)

A PC needs an 800-MHz CPU, 512 MB of RAM and an integrated graphics processor that can handle Microsoft’s DirectX 9 graphical interface just to run Vista, according to Microsoft. For a PC that is Windows Aero ready, the requirements are more stringent. A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC for Windows Aero needs at least a 1-GHz CPU, 1 GB of RAM, DirectX 9 graphics, 128 MB of graphics memory and pixel shader 2.0, which means an external graphics card or processor is almost invariably required.

During a Wired News test, an HP Compaq 8430 laptop with a 2-GHz Intel T2500 CPU, 1 GB of RAM and a stand-alone ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics processor with 256 MB of video memory could handle the RC2 version of Aero. Vista’s graphically intensive features worked well and the operating system’s glasslike windows and icons were nice to look at, but in this writer’s opinion, a 3-year-old version of SuSE Linux’s operating system is just as beautiful.

With the stand-alone ATI graphics processor disabled during the test, the images became glitchy and the resolution poor. Attempts to play a video file with Windows Media Center did not work. The laptop’s integrated graphics processor was just not good enough to handle the load by itself.

II) Billionaire Steve Wynn Ruins $139 Million Picasso (ReviewJournal)

The accident occurred as a gesturing Wynn, who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that affects peripheral vision, struck the painting with his right elbow, leaving a hole the size of a silver dollar in the left forearm of Marie-Theresa Walter, Picasso’s 21-year-old mistress.

“Oh shit, look what I’ve done,” Wynn said, according to Ephron, who gave her account in a blog published on Monday.

III) Download Every Episode of The Simpsons

IV) Great Googaly! Sam & Max is Almost Ready (Telltale Games)

V) Can’t Figure Out What That Font is? Use Identifont

VI) Ikea Lamp Commercial:

VII) Wendy’s Training Video. Get Some Grill Skillz!

VIII) Nintendo Wii: Wins and Losses (IGN)

Every time a 50-plus-year-old stands in line to preorder a new Wii console, a Nintendo executive gets his wings. Look up in the sky now and you might see a few of them soaring around, giggling. Don’t try to feed them, by the way – it’s dangerous.

Clearly, the company that Mario built has with its looming videogame platform tried something completely original and both gamers and non-gamers alike are taking notice. Three years ago, the mere concept of a new game machine that didn’t speed down the bigger-and-badder horsepower avenue might have seemed unlikely at the very least and financially irresponsible at the very most, but the Big N has done it, and we’re all excited anyway. Not because Wii delivers a quantum leap in graphics, because so far that hasn’t been proven true. No, you’re lining up and in some cases your dad is lining up because the system presents a completely fresh way to play.

Wii has a lot going for it, including the fact that – unlike GameCube, which was very similar to competing systems – it’s totally unique. People will not confuse its strengths or weaknesses. But has Nintendo executed on every move correctly with its new platform or has it missed some opportunities, too?

XI) Letter to Senator: Constituent Wants to Become Illegal Immigrant, Benefit

The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC, 20510

Dear Senator Sarbanes:
As a native Marylander and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Immigration and Naturalization Service in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.

My reasons for wishing to change my status from U.S. citizen to illegal alien stem from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill’s provisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, what I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years.

I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out.
Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year, so I’m excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of the last five years taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively?
This would yield an excellent return for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005 and I estimated a gross savings approximating $72,000. After the fine this would yield me a net savings of $70,000.

In addition, I would reap the other benefits of being an illegal alien such as free health care, avoidance of paying Social Security taxes, buying automobile insurance, serving on jury panels, etc. If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative.

Thank you for your assistance.
Your Loyal Constituent

X) Virtual NES Emulator. Absolutely. Awesome.

Fin.

According to MSNBC, a $100 deposit on your PS3 pre-order will get you the solid satisfaction of knowing you could receive one of the overpriced consoles when they are eventually released.

For that kind of security, I’d gladly pay $200.

Ha ha! No, actually I wouldn’t. Read here:

NEW YORK – GameStop and EB Games stores are going to start accepting pre-orders for Sony’s PlayStation 3 game console on Tuesday, according to their Web sites.

Due to “extremely limited supply,” the stores expect their allocations of what is perhaps the holiday’s season’s most eagerly anticipated gadget to run out in minutes.

A $100 deposit is required for each order, but even that won’t guarantee that a PlayStation 3 will be available when the console goes on sale on Nov. 17, according to the notices, because the stores have no control over production and shipping issues.

Even if you’re old enough to remember the eighties, you’re probably not emotionally mature enough for Dinosaurs Attack!

When Topps released this series of collectible trading cards in 1988, no one was emotionally mature enough – especially not the 10-year olds buying them.

Even today, in our world of wanton television violence and Magic the Gathering satanism…these cards are horrifyingly inappropriate.

Eschewing popular standards of “decency” and “taste,” Dinosaurs Attack! depicted classrooms full of dinosaur-mangled children, kids being lunched on by herbivores (?) directly from their school bus, and my personal favorite: dinosaurs squashing a puppy right in front of a little girl.

Now that’s how you do insensitive.

Sure, sure. We all remember the Garbage Pail Kids, and they were kind of gross. But gross in a cute way. Gross like fake puke and plastic dog poop.

Dinosaurs Attack! is infinitely beyond the pale of those other collectible cards. They are so ultra-violent and rife with scientific and religious heracy that no responsible parent could ever – ever – in good conscience buy them for their kids.

And that’s why they’re awesome.

Incredibly awesome to be exact.

Bob Heffner has put together the entire set for you to marvel at. You can find it here. And I-Mockery has a pretty hilarious retrospective on the series. Check out both of these links and delight in the sheer audacity of Dinosaurs Attack!

I want to let you guys see just what it is I do for a living.

I do this:

The show will air on Comcast Sports South on October 15th and 16th. Please tune in! Please tell everyone you know to watch. This is the first show of its kind developed for CSS, and we’re pushing very hard to get the word out.

Many of you will be getting an official press release from me soon, but you saw it here first.

We shot well over 80 hours of footage for this show – and you’ll see things you’ve never seen before in a behind-the-scenes college football doc. If you’re a fan of Tennessee football, or of football period, you’re going to love it.

Believe me – I’m a fan of both and I love it.

*I shot and did the graphics package for this show, but no editing. Dustin, Jeremy, Tyler and John made it look as amazing as it does.

It takes an awful lot of dedication to do what these two guys did: photograph themselves every day for years.

The guy in the first video, Noah, is the original inspiration for this sort of video on YouTube. Many, many videos of the same sort – and parodies galore – followed Noah’s lead.

But the other guy, Jonathan, is much more interesting. You can actually see him age over the course of the eight years he claims to have photographed himself. It takes a while to notice the changes, but subtle as they might be, the end is dramatically different from the beginning.

Noah goes from artsy weirdo with wavy hair to Tim Burton to artsy weirdo with greasy and wavy hair.

But Jonathan goes from normal guy to normal guy with glasses to normal guy without glasses to Luke Wilson to pedophile.

See for yourself.

Transmogrify!

What can I say about this clip? It’s nearly inexplicable.

It’s nearly inexplicable and it’s the funniest dance video ever to come out of Bollywood. Ha ha! The ending is priceless.

Little man + badass beatbox jams + mime-style dance skills = Shazaam!

Start laughing….now.

Who loves board games and/or card games?

Everybody. That’s who.

Who loves a value?

Me. That’s who. And you. You do, too.

Read those sentences with the correct meter and intonation and you’ve got yourself the next Oscar Mayer hotdog jingle. Instant classic.

Based on the information I just gave you (not the jingle part), each and every one of you will love Cheapass Games. You can’t argue with facts, and you shouldn’t argue with me.

But I’ll let them convince you in their own words:

We here at Cheapass Games are aware of two basic facts about games: they cost too much, and they are at some level all the same.

If you ignore the clever shapes they come in, the cheap little plastic pawns are an interchangeable part of most of the board games in your house. So are the dice, the money, the counters, the pencils, and just about every other random spare part. These generic bits and pieces can account for as much as 75% of a game’s production cost, and that cost gets handed to you.

If you had your choice, you’d probably invest a little bit of money in one good set of gaming paraphernalia instead of twenty crappy ones, and then just buy the new part of every “new” game. Yet most companies insist on selling you the whole package every time; it’s like bundling a can opener with a can of beans.

Cheapass Games come with the bare essentials: boards, cards, and rulebooks. If you need anything else, we’ll tell you. And it’s probably something you can scrounge from a game you already own, or buy at a hobby store for less than “they” are charging you for it. Heck, if you need to, you can even buy the parts from us.

And once you’ve assembled your collection of generic small parts, you can use them for every new Cheapass Game.

Genius! It’s almost like open-source for board games. Take that Parker Brothers.

You can buy any selection from their impressive library of games for practically nothing. Although they recommend that you support your local game shop, you can also get your Cheapass games from Paizo.com.

$3.00, $4.00, $7.50, $1.00…the prices are exorbitant. Seriously.

And although I’ve yet to play a single game from these guys, I most certainly will in the near future. I mean, how can you resist titles like these:

Captain Treasure Boots
Enemy Chocolatier
Secret Tijuana Deathmatch
Captain Park’s Imaginary Polar Expedition
Landyland

Landyland? Ha ha! I can’t stop being impressed at a name like that.

So, if you enjoy board games or card games or being cool – and you do – then visit the website for Cheapass Games.

Have fun and save money. It’s better than not having fun and losing your life savings on a condominium purchase that’s turned out to just be a huge financial disaster.

It’s true!

I decided that I’d start posting some of the more obscure and/or remarkable videos I dig up on YouTube. Let’s call them YouTube Gems.

Or I’ll call them that and you call them crap.

Whichever.

To start things off, how about some unbelievable drum solos performed by kids who still pee their pants. Igor Falecki (4), Jacob Armen (7), and Jammaster Josh (3), respectively.

Drumroll please…

I got a lot of excellent gifts for my birthday this year. Really excellent.

But nothing could come close to being as manly and full of total ass-kickery than Maddox‘s The Alphabet of Manliness.

That I received this gift from my girlfriend, Casey, is a testament to just how righteous she is.

By its own account, the book is so manly it needs to be shaved. It is, also by its own admission, the only book that guarantees your balls will be stomped. With a preface like that, how can you not immediately go buy yourself a copy.

If you didn’t click the link and go buy a copy, then you clearly don’t appreciate “good.”

Alright. So the picture of a man punching a gorilla and my personal recommendation aren’t enough to sell you on the book just yet. So read this and be sold:

The first chapter is titled, expectedly, “A is for…Ass-Kicking.”

Immediately under the title is a picture of a lumberjack punching Santa Claus in the face. Enough said!

“B,” naturally enough, “is for Boners.”

I think the book speaks for itself.

But there is so much more information in the book. Seriously, seriously.

From “P is for…Pirate”:

For those deficient in piratical knowledge, that is, you, here are some facts about pirates:

• The only thing that can kill a pirate is another pirate.
• Pirates drink rum almost exclusively. The only exception is for an occasional iced mocha or chai tea with 2 percent milk.
• Pirates prefer BBQ- or Cajun-flavored potato chips.
• A pirate’s sweat tastes like whiskey.
• Sometimes pirates kick cats just because.
• Pirates think college is a waste of time.
• Eye patches make chicks horny.
• Pirates possess parrots with eye patches and pirated prosthetic peg legs.
• A pirate’s semen is indestructible.
• Pirates hate all forms of dancing, except for breakdancing, which lumberjacks would agree is awesome.
• All pirates have hair on their backs and knuckles. Women find this intriguing.
• A pirate ejaculates fully-grown leprechauns (see Figure 1)

Yes. There is a Figure 1.

Still not sold? Then don’t buy the book.