Simply The Best… Not

When I put this post in the “Music” category I need you to know that I’m using that term quite loosely.

Why Not Sell Your Soul on eBay?

“While I don’t believe in God, I firmly believe I would immediately change those views if presented with evidence to the contrary. And at age 22, this is possibly the best chance anyone has of changing me.”

This comes from Hemant Mehta who is obviously searching for answers. (Aren’t we all?)

The Atheist Who Went to Church is a great interview that Mehta gave to Outreach magazine writer Heather Johnson. There are some great questions/answers in this piece.

Odds for GH3 Songs

Bodog allows you to bet on most anything (purely for entertainment purposes, of course) so it’s not surprising to see them post odds for which songs might land on the upcoming release of Guitar Hero 3 in the fall.

5/1 – Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne
8/1 – Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin
12/1 – Black in Black
20/1 – Walk This Way by Aerosmith

/Paladin throws down a ten-spot on that AC/DC song

Top Ten Video Game Weapons

More YouTube goodness. Ahhh… good times. I have to agree with #1—that gravity gun is sweet. No need to worry about ammo because everything is ammo.

Celebrity Jeopardy Compilation

A week can’t go by without me throwing up some lame YouTube clips, right? Well… for that, this one rocks!

FrippBound v26

When We’ve been going on family vacations to Fripp Island, South Carolina for so many years that I’ve lost count. Started going when I was like 14 and I’m what now?… a spry 41?

Anyway, this annual trip is about tradition than anything else and we love it. There must have 100 things that we do, just because we’ve always done them. I couldn’t begin to list them. This trip is something we look forward to once we pass the holidays and start counting down the days, literally, months in advance.

I wish I could take all you loyal readers with me, (it’d be a tight fit but I think we could manage) but we all know that’s impossible. But I didn’t want to leave you hanging either. So I’ve preloaded the dojo (thank you WordPress!) with a post-a-day to keep you company while I’m gone.

And with that, I leave you with this stunning example of why I packed my Speedo.

Dojo Info 5/25/07

1. Tayshaun Prince Joins Olympic Team
   Well it’s about time.
2. Are the USPS’s “forever” stamps a good deal for the consumer?
   Turns out… no. Inflation grows faster than stamp prices.
3. Net taxes could arrive by this fall
   “But with Democrats now in control of both chambers of Congress, the political dynamic appears to have shifted in favor of the pro-tax advocates and their allies on Capitol Hill.” Republicans fought this for years and now that the Dems are in power, new taxes? Figures.
4. Google Trends
   Google is everywhere.
5. 14-year-old wins geography bee
   Where was this when I was young? Spelling is for chumps… geography, that’s how you pull the hotties.

More GH80s Songs Revealed

More Rock the 80s songs for Guitar Hero!

1. 18 and Life (as made famous by Skid Row)
2. Bathroom Wall (as made famous by Faster Pussycat)
3. Lonely is the Night (as made famous by Billy Squier)
4. Nothing But a Good Time (as made famous by Poison)
5. Play With Me (as made famous by Extreme)
6. Shaken (as made famous by Eddie Money)
7. Synchronicity II (as made famous by Police)

But you know… I’m not really very jazzed about these picks. Maybe my hopes were too high but c’mon… Eddie Money? Extreme?!? I know for a fact that these weren’t listed on the official GH forums. [via Kotaku]

Dojo Info 5/22/07

1. Google creates uber search site
   Deez boyz iz takin’ it to… uh hoe nubba lebbole.
2. WordPress 2.2 Released
   More good stuff from one of my favorite companies (organizations? personnel collectives?!?) on the Internet!
3. U2 goes 3D for new film
   I couldn’t care less about the Cannes Film Festival, but this just piqued my interest.
4. Summize’s New Ratings Graphic
   Analytical and attractive?!? We have a winner!
5. World In Conflict Suits Consoles
   In game graphics now rival what used to be only visible in cut scenes.

The World’s Most Hated Blogger

How do you lose your proverbial shirt in real estate then turn it into a profit? Casey Serin did it by blogging. And making a lot of enemies along the way.

After running up a debt of $170,000 in failed real estate endeavors, he decided to tell the world how much he hated how things have turned out. To his surprise (and mine) people are hitting his site by the thousands!

“A community formed overnight,” Serin said in an interview. “It wasn’t a very positive community.”

It’s a strange phenomenon where people who dislike Serin, tune in to his site for entertainment. A kind of cyber mob mentality. The guy deserves our pity more than anything else. To make as many bad decisions as he has and still has the fortitude to press on does speak to his determination, if not his intellect.

Musicians Hack GH Controllers

Guitar Hero is completely cool, in my book. So… I’m pretty interested in learning about all the latest developments. These guys hacked the controllers to somehow play real music. Now, if only their music was any good.

But you’ve got to hand it to their ingenuity. It was probably a pretty tricky problem to solve and now they can say they did it first!

When Is News Not News? When It’s Wrong

I’ve been blogging since 1996. Back then we just called it regular updates. Anyway, as a member of the informal media, it’s pretty disparaging to find stories like this wear apparently reputable news organizations completely screw the pooch.

WOWK-TV in Huntington… consider your reputation soiled.

Dojo Info 5/17/07

1. Famous industrial designers talk about iconic pieces of technology.
   My dad had one of those phones and one of these.
2. Amazon.com to Launch Digital Music Store
   They might actually make a contest of this market.
3. ‘Halo 3′ to land in stores in September
   (Halo+console) -9 years = Quake+PC
4. Next gen of Wi-Fi is planned for summer
   “802.11n expected to be 5 time faster than current ‘g’ standard.” That’s all I needed to know.
5. ’24′ on the Clock for Two More Seasons
   But of course! Think they’d cancel it?

A Much Needed ‘Humble’ Mindset

I don’t agree with a lot that Jonathan Rauch believes. With that said, there’s something truly wise in the following excerpt from The Radical Incrementalist—an interview he gave to Nick Gillespie for Reason Magazine.

Everybody makes [mistakes]; it’s par for the course. What I have learned is not to be too sure I’m right. The world is much more surprising than we give it credit for. That’s part of my political philosophy, my philosophy of life. That’s really fundamental to it: Trial and error is really the only thing in life that works ultimately over the long term. Journalism is like that, too, so we need to be honest about our mistakes. We often aren’t enough. Everybody makes mistakes. And we need to be a little bit cautious about making predictions.

Did you catch it? “…not to be too sure I’m right”? This is a concept that I’ve been discussing with friends and family for a couple of years now. I think we can all agree that no one is 100% correct in all of their belief systems, right? So then it becomes a matter of degrees.

If God sent you an email that said you were right 81.43% of the things you hold to be true, most likely you’d be pretty proud of yourself. Therein lies the problem. Most of us behave like we’re always right.

Instead, we should approach each topic with humility and the mindset that says, “I believe A to be correct, but of course, I could be wrong.”

In a culture that applauds everything but humility—pride, boldness and flamboyance—I believe we’re heading down the wrong road.

Swallowing my own medicine I sputter, “But, of course, I could be wrong.” [via kottke]

Dojo Info 5/16/07

1. The native-born are leaving “hip” cities for the heartland.
   Another way to say it, “People are getting tired of liberal living.” *wink*
2. Wii creates celebrity Miis
   There are some good ones in there. Jack Black was instantly recognizable to me.
3. New Domain Names Could Come in Mid-2008
   Let the land-grab begin!
4. The Answer is NOT always C
   I love the teacher’s PS, “B is the new C.”
5. Superbad
   He’s coming. No one is safe.

My apologies, I post too fast. I mistaking thought this was Strongbad. Not Superbad. Please forgive me.