I don’t know why I never thought of this before but I’m sure glad I did.
Just about everything mildly useful these days has an RSS feed, and Facebook notifications are no exception. Since I use Google Reader so much (I pretty much have that tab open ALL THE TIME) it makes sense that the easiest way for me to keep up-to-date with my friends’ Facebook activities (wall posts, photo comments, friend-to-friend interactions, etc.) is through my RSS reader. No effort required! :)
The sexy Passport hard-drives from Western Digital have just gotten a bit sexier with these new My Passport Essential USB-powered shiny black boxes. Like the regular WD Passports, the My Passport Essential is thin, fast, and looks superb. You honestly can’t store your stuff in anything better.
As you can see, the My Passport Essential is small enough to fit in your shirt pocket (not a recommended storing location).
The My Passport Essential comes in storage capacities of 160GB, 250GB, and 300GB. The 300GB is only $200. Mod this sucka with a LCD screen and a headphone jack and you’ve just bought yourself the world’s cheapest iPod with the greatest storage capacity. Heh, just kidding (although I’d like to see somebody do that).
I’ve had a Wordpress.com account for a while now but I never really used it until just the other day when word went out that a new theme called Prologue was released. Since then, I’ve activated the theme and have been playing around with my account over at Wordpress.com more and more. After just over a day of poking around, I’m convinced that this is more useful than most people think (even more so, now that Prologue has been updated with a better version).
It’s not much at the moment, but head over to doobybrain.wordpress.com to see what Prologue is all about (it’s a simple example). At its core, it offers a group of individuals an extremely easy way to blog all in one place; a “group Twitter” if you will.
With individual RSS feeds for each user, Prologue allows readers to choose which authors they want to follow — all of them, or just a select few.
One reason I am so excited about this is because it has the potential to change the way I run Doobybrain.com. Generally speaking, a lot of content that I post on Doobybrain.com stems from my family and my close friends. They send me links, I find them interesting, and I post them. That’s how Doobybrain.com has always worked. What Prologue offers my site structure is the ability to branch out my content creation beyond simply myself. And the great thing about it is that it’s meant to be short blurbs and one-liners anyway, so posts can simply be text and links and nothing more. It makes updating fun and easy (and quick!).
A good example of how group blogging would be beneficial is when I’m away from my computer and internet for extended periods of time. If I got all of my siblings on board with the idea, Doobybrain.com could hypothetically be run by 5 different people posting content at all hours of the day. Each of them would post whatever they found interesting — images, links, news, personal stuff, etc. — and the site would be updated regardless of whether or not I was around. With 5 different people at the helm, Doobybrain.com would never have to be idle again (unless we took a family vacation…but that never happens).
For now, I’ll just link to both of these blogs via RSS feeds on the sidebar. But I don’t know, I’m so tempted to switch my theme here now. What do you guys think?
I seriously can’t stop laughing at this video by Max Goldberg.
For those who are not familiar, Planet Earth is the Emmy-award winning TV documentary from the BBC which features breathtaking views of Earth and its inhabitants.
Fugu is the Japanes word for pufferfish, and it is also one of the world’s deadliest foods. And yet, people from all over the world come [mostly] to Japan to try the delicacy.
The reason why fugu is so deadly is because the pufferfish contains a neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin.
A lethal dose for a full-grown man would fit on the head of a pin. YEAH. YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY. A PIN!
National Geographic labels fugu as “the seafood version of Russian roulette”.
One mistake in preparation could mean death for connoisseurs of fugu, the poisonous puffer fish that is a high-priced delicacy in Japan. Chefs must pass a rigorous certification process, a timed test to prove their skills at eviscerating, filleting, separating poisonous and edible parts on marked trays, and then identifying the organs with tags. In Tokyo, the city’s fugu association administers the examination every August at the Tsukiji Fish Market.
Symptoms vary in individuals but may include numbness of the lips, tongue, face, and extremities; floating sensation; dizziness; headache; vomiting; abdominal pain; diarrhea; slurred speech; difficulty walking; extensive muscle weakness; and death within a few hours. The substance is 1,200 times deadlier than cyanide, and one puffer fish contains enough poison to kill 30 people. There is no known antidote.
Ok, if you didn’t read all that I’ll summarize it for you. Basically, if you ingest even the tiniest bit by accident, YOU WILL GO CRAZY AND DIE WITHIN A FEW HOURS. Blame the chef all you want, but you’ll be dead. Last year, at least 15 people were killed when they accidentally bought fugu disguised as salmon.
When you order this dish, your life is literally in the hands of the chef.
Check out the video below of fugu being prepared by a Japanese chef.
As you can see, the fugu is alive when it gets chopped up. It’s still breathing even when it’s mouth gets cut off.
Anyway, all of this talk of fugu makes me a bit scared and a bit curious. I’d love to sit down and try some one day. Morimoto in New York City supposedly has the best fugu in town.
This time I really mean it…THOSE CRAZY JAPANESE!!!
What the hell is wrong with this dog? It just jumped into the water to drag a slightly incapacitated shark to shore! WHAT IF THE SHARK JUST SUDDENLY SNAPPED?! DEAD!
