- USA Today's list of the most influential fictional luminaries:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-10-16-influential-people-list_x.htm

- Three emerging technologies that will someday have a profound effect on your life:
http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=631&page=1

- 29 Things to do when your internet connection is down. I am adding one to the list...work on my Jim Tressel voodoo doll.
http://www.keepersoflists.org/index.php?lid=6094

- The life of a trivia junkie:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/10/24/jennings.jeopardy/index.html?eref=rss_showbiz

- Another NBA season starts in a few days. The only thing new on the Laker's bench is Phil Jackson's artificial hip. I doubt the Lakers will make the playoffs. My predictions for the season:

Eastern Conference finals: Chicago over Miami in 6.
Western Conference finals: Phoenix over Dallas in 6.
NBA Finals: Phoenix over Chicago in 5.

Here are the ESPN power-rankings for the new season:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/powerranking?season=2007&week=-1

Since I am doing predictions, let me give you my predictions for the elections a week from Tuesday. I give the democrats a 55% of winning the house, and a 40% chance of winning the senate. I think the democrats pick up 20 seats in the house, and 4 in the senate. One of the best political writers in the country, Michael Barone, writes about how things might actually shake-out on November 7th:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/10/the_story_behind_the_polls.html

- The U.S. population passed 300 million a few days ago. America has the highest birthrate among all industrialized countries. Why? Simple. Americans can afford their kids. People in Europe and Japan are over-taxed, over-regulated, and under-paid, so they cannot afford to have kids:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061017/D8KQCF780.html

- It may sound grotesque, but everyone of us has parasites crawling inside and outside our bodies. Scientists have found a particular cat parasite which they thought was harmless, but large concentrations of it in a woman can effect whether she gives birth to a boy or a girl. This may explain why in most countries the birthrate for males is slightly higher than the birthrate for females:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1920165,00.html

- Americans are kicking butt in the Nobel prize awards this year. Since the inception of the Nobel prize, no country has more Nobel winners than the U.S. Here are 20 things you may not have known about the Nobel prize: (link might not be working.)
http://www.discover.com/issues/oct-06/departments/20-things-nobel-prizes/

- The 10 worst portrayals of technology in films. I could add 50 more examples to this list. One in particular that jumps out at me...in the movie Independence Day, Jeff Goldblum, using a Macintosh, uploads a computer virus to stop the aliens. Thank goodness the aliens, who live light-years away and have virtually nothing in common with us, also use Macs!
http://www.gideontech.com/content/articles/326/1

- A funny article from Steve Martin, in which he apologizes for all of the horrible things he has done in his life:
http://www.stevemartin.com/world_of_steve/print/a_public_apology.php

- During the 2004 elections, blogging became a huge part of how people received their election news. I found one particular website especially informative. A little known political scientist by the name of Jay Cost made absolutely perfect predictions about the 2004 election. His analysis, while not only being uncannily accurate, was so darn thorough that he was even predicting election numbers in small, but important districts which even the republicans or democrats could not predict. He stopped updating his website last year, but he now writes for realclearpolitics.com. Read his latest articles to get a good feel for how the congressional elections will turn out this November:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/author/jay_cost/

- Participating in online gambling is not illegal in the United States, but running an online gambling site is. However, Microsoft may have found a way around this. Microsoft is considering allowing Xbox 360 owners to play Texas Hold em on their Xbox site, and winners would earn Xbox points, which they can then use to buy products and video games for their Xbox from Microsoft. You can already buy Xbox points using regular money, so you can see Microsoft opening a whole new can of worms if they proceed with this. The following article explains more:
http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/story.html?id=e374bd6a-2850-4cf3-b4ff-77ec18c67c3e&k=37387

- The 25 most important questions in the history of the universe:
http://www.neatorama.com/2006/07/24/the-25-most-important-questions-in-the-history-of-the-universe/

- I keep talking about free online storage options on this site, and now a really good one has emerged. AOL has created a completely free website which gives you 5 gigabtyes of online storage. You can put anything you like into the space they give you, and then share the files with anyone you like. I am going to start putting all kinds of stuff onto my XDrive storage area:
http://www.xdrive.com/

- I taped and watched the whole Path to 9/11 docudrama on ABC. At first, I wasnt sure if I would watch it, since I am justifiably weary of any political drama appearing on any network. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Path to 9/11. It is definitely conservative, it definitely trashes the Clinton administration (especially Madeleine Albright. She comes out as a twisted, politically correct hag-beast) and it definitely taught me some things I did not know regarding the lead-up to 9/11. I found the whole thing riveting, and Harvey Kietel was excellent as John O'neill. Famed conservative historian Victor David Hanson writes about the 9/11 documdrama:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/09/the_path_to_911a_postmortem.html

- I am tired of people comparing the war in Iraq to Vietnam. The two are completely different. The war in Iraq is going much better than the war in Vietnam ever did. The next time some crazy left-wing nut (also known as a moonbat) gets in your face and tells you Iraq is another Vietnam, quote him or her the statistics from the following website:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/bg1954.cfm

- Imagine this...your nine year-old son or daugther is in the championship baseball game for his or her local town little league. Your team is guaranteed a win if you walk the other team's best player, then pitch to the worst player on the other team, but there is a problem...the worst player on the other team has cancer! What do you do? It's a tough moral question. This exact situation came up in a little league game in Utah last summer. Read the following article, and then comment on what you would do. What would I do? I would have walked the best player on the opposing team, and pitched to the cancer kid. After all, I have to think about the 20 players on my team who worked their tails off during the regular season to win the championship. The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/rick_reilly/08/07/reilly0814/index.html

- The 10 creepiest television commercial icons of all-time. I absolutely agree with #5:
http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2006/08/ten_creepiest_i_1.html

- Sunday, August 13th was left-handers day. How do you determine if someone is left-handed? There is no hard-core rule. I use the simple rule of which hand do you write with. If you write with your left-hand, you are left-handed. Here is just a small list of famous left-handed people, and two websites devoted to celebrating left-handers day:

Thomas Jefferson (the declaration of independence was written with a left-hand!)
Benjamin Franklin
George Herbert Walker Bush
Bill Clinton
Ross Perot (that's right. All three presidential candidates from 1992 were left-handed.)
Clint Eastwood (at the end of Dirty Harry, which hand does he use to throw his badge into the pond?)
Robert Redford
Bruce Willis (watch Die Hard again. Which hand does he use to hold his gun?)
Tom Cruise
Angelina Jolie
Jerry Seinfeld (remember the check-signing from the Super-terrific happy hour?)
Mark Hamill (Which hand does he use to throw the rock which brings down the gate on the Rancor?)
Will Ferrell
Oprah Winfrey
Nicole Kidman

I write left-handed, but I use my right-hand for various tasks:
I throw right-handed.
I bowl right-handed.
I golf right-handed.
I play tennis and ping-pong left-handed.
I throw darts left-handed.
I drive right-handed.
I smoke left-handed (I would burn myself if I even tried to smoke right-handed.)
I eat left-handed.
I tie my shoes left-handed (people get creeped-out when they watch me tie my shoes.)
I drink left-handed.
I use scissors left-handed.
I kick with my left-foot.
I talk on the phone left-handed.
I play NTN trivia with my right-hand.
I use my mouse with either hand.

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/28075/a-hand-for-the-lefties
http://www.lefthandersday.com/

- 20 reasons why college football is better than pro-football. I love both, but I really do prefer college football. I love his comment of "history demands that Michigan must win." You cant fight history!
College Football versus pro-football

- More Iron Man real-world technology. A mechanical exoskeleton that can increase your strength ten-fold!
http://ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?&aid=61474

- Over 50 years ago Alan Turing devised a test for checking if a computer is truly artificially intelligent. It's appropriately named The Turing Test. No one has yet to create a machine which has actually passed this test. Computer scientists debate whether any machine will ever pass this test. I think someday a computer will pass this test, but such a computer still will not be artificially intelligent. Instead, it will simply have so many possible responses stored in its memory that it gives a human-like answer no matter what you ask it. Read more about the Turing test here:
http://tt-blogs.com/comment.php?id=47

- Have you ever noticed that the floppy-drive inside your computer is labeled the "A drive" and the hard-drive in your computer is labeled the "C Drive." What happened to the B drive? Why skip the letter B? Here's why:
http://ask.yahoo.com/20050304.html

- Summer of 2005 was a big season of movies (at least it was for me.) We got a new Batman movie, and a new Star Wars movie. Sounds like summer 2008 will also be a big season of movies. We finally get an Iron Man movie, and now Time-Warner has annnounced The new Batman movie. It will be titled "The Dark Knight." The word "Batman" does not appear anywhere in the title. I like it, but it's not all good news. Heath Ledger will play the Joker. Ugh. Yes, the Heath Ledger from Brokeback. I think this is horrible casting, but it's not quite enough to completely ruin my enthusiasm. I am hearing that the new Batman movie will be darker than Batman Begins, and the Joker is going to be really nasty. Personally, I thought Jack Nicholson was the quinessential Joker; a twisted monster with no regard for human life. Others thought Nicholson's Joker was too soft and fuzzy. Here is the official press release for the new movie:
http://www.darkhorizons.com/news06/060731n.php

- Famous sports traditions:
Famous Sports Traditions

- Strange, little test I found on the net. How quickly can you click a series of boxes using your mouse? Look on the right-hand side of the following website to test yourself. The best I could do is 30 clicks in the time given:
http://www.lookuptables.com/

- I love stories about home-made jetpacks. Especially the ones where the inventor operates it for the first time, and runs into a high-voltage power-line. The following inventor didnt make that mistake, but he did give the jetpack a rather familiar, and cliche'd name:
http://www.mobilewhack.com/reviews/skywalker_jet_packs_it_works.html

- Supposedly this is one of the hardest, yet most rewarding puzzles on the internet. There are 137 parts to it. Definitely need to think "outside the box" to solve these puzzles. One afternoon I worked up to page 8 before I stopped. I might give it another crack:
http://www.deathball.net/notpron/levelone.htm

- The top 100 name brands, according to Business week:
http://bwnt.businessweek.com/brand/2006/

- FilmCritic.com picks the top 50 film endings:
Top 50 Film Endings

- The following website asks you a series of questions to determine which superhero you are most like. Apparently I am most like Green Lantern, which disappoints me. I have never cared for Green Lantern:
http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/superhero/

- Is there a certain word or speech pattern that you repeat far too often during conversations? For example, do you use the word "like" too much? Maybe you use "uh" or "um" too often to pause in between sentences or thoughts? Personally, I use the word "just" far too often when I am talking. It's a passive-aggressive trait, but I have never tried to stop doing it. Here is a website which gives you tips on how to curtail those annoying verbal habits we all have:
http://www.mtannoyances.com/?p=417

- A few months ago I wrote about how your cell-phone, TV signal, internet signal, and every other digital signal you use every day will all come from one source. The following article explains how this could all happen in just three years time. Soon we will think of the internet in the same way we think of the radio; free, always available, and accessible from everywhere:
Nation-wide access in three years

- What kind of genius are you? According to this article, there are two kinds:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html

- A few days ago marked the 150th birthday of Nikola Tesla, America's 2nd greatest inventor. If it wasnt for Tesla, you wouldnt be reading this website, I would be out of a job, and you wouldnt even be sitting in a well-lit room. Over 100 years ago, the great and all-knowing Thomas Edison was too stubborn to give up on Direct Current (DC), but Tesla knew that Alternating Current was the wave of the future. Tesla proved to the world that if you want to wire an entire city with electron-goodness, you had to use Alternating Current. Here is a biography of Nikola Tesla:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

- How the heck did I miss this? It's now official, Marvel is doing an Iron Man movie! The movie will be released on May 2nd, 2008. Jon Favreau (Swingers) will direct it. No cast yet. The movie will start filming in January.

The picture to the right is the very first teaser poster for the movie. The armor will probably not look like this picture, although the person who will be partially responsible for designing the armor, Adi Granov, drew this picture.

The obvious question is who will play Tony Stark? Darn good question. For years I have thought about who should play Iron Man. Here is my list of current actors who would make a good Tony Stark, and my ultimate list of people who should have played Tony Stark at some time in their careers:

Current List:
1. Jim Caviezel
2. Billy Cruddup (maybe too short. He is only 5'8" according to IMDB.com)
3. Ron Livingston (I think he is great, but maybe too under-stated for Tony? Tony is a babe-hound, alcoholic, larger than life, supra-genius.)
4. Timothy Olyphant (from Deadwood. Not brunette enough?)
5. Jeremy Northam (British, but one of my favorite actors.)

Ultimate List:
1. Tom Sellect (duh)
2. Burt Reynolds
3. Circa 1965 Robert Goulet! I aint joking. He has the voice, and the cheesy moustache.
4. Gregory Peck.
5. Kevin Kline (remember the scene in Soapdish, where he walks onto the set in the white suit? Perfect Tony Stark.)
6. Clark Gable
7. Errol Flynn (the character of Tony Stark was largely based upon Errol Flynn and Howard Hughes.)

I will add more actors to these lists as the weeks and months pass by.

They better use computer-animation to create the Iron Man armor, otherwise he will look silly. Spider-man looks great animated (Tobey McGuire is hardly ever actually in the costume), the Hulk looked reasonably good. The Thing, since he wasnt computerized, looked absolutely absurd, and so did Juggernaut. Computerize Iron Man! I beg of you Marvel!

Perhaps my biggest question about this movie is who will be the villain? Tony Stark has plenty of enemies, but none of them are very interesting. His greatest enemy, the Mandarin, is pretty lame, and can sometimes come off as stereotyping Asian people. Not exactly the kind of villain which will pack movie-theaters.

Here is an article with Jon Favreau about the new Iron Man movie, and a link to a MySpace website Favreau created so fans can talk about the new movie:
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1532303/story.jhtml
http://groups.myspace.com/ironmanmovie/

- A website which will teach you how to play blackjack. Use this website for a few hours, and I guarantee you will improve your play. Now, if you are looking to go beyond regular blackjack strategy, and learn how to count cards, I cannot help you there:
http://hitorstand.net/

- The president is experiencing a slight bounce in the polls, after killing Zarqawi. Fred Barnes, Mr. White House insider, explains why and how Georgie can keep the bounce:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/409wtshp.asp

- Why knuckles crack, and joints creak:
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060710_mm_joints_crack.html

- This is my cubicle at work. The first thing that jumps out at you regarding my cubicle is the lack of decor. When it comes to my job, I live by the axiom Neil Mcauley (Robert De Niro) expounded in the movie Heat..."Do not get attached to anything you cannot walk away from in 30 seconds. That's the discipline."

Besides, there are hidden treasures located in my cubicle. This small rectangular area, encased by grey walls is actually a window into a much larger world.

You cannot see it, but my computer chair has arms on it. I am the only non-manager in the company that has a chair with arms. A computer chair without arms is the ultimate insult to a computer programmer.

My mouse, as of this writing, is located on the right side of my keyboard. Every two or three weeks, I switch my mouse to the left side of the keyboard, and use it left-handed. I am just as proficient using a mouse left-handed as I am right-handed. I even have software on my machine which switches the mouse buttons. When using the mouse left-handed the primary button becomes the right mouse button. This technique helps cut down on the dreaded carpal-tunnel syndrome.

I hardly ever use the speakers connected to my computer, except during the late afternoons. I listen to Detroit Tiger baseball via the internet. During the fall I listen to press conferences with Lloyd Carr.

A woman I have recently been dating said to me that my cubicle is too barren. Too boring. She said I should put up my favorite Bloom County cartoon, or a picture of my family. Well, I have those things, but they are located on the hard-drive of my computer, and spring to life when my screen-saver starts.

If someone sends an email to my Gmail account, a message immediately pops up on my screen, and my cell-phone also rings! Pretty neat huh?

I have complete, unfettered, T-1 access to the internet. It's a must for my position. My job would be impossible without it.

- Famous Doctors who tried their own medicine on themselves, before they tried it on their patients. Brave people indeed (or certifiable.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8123-2217159,00.html

- Look at the following animated image. Do you see a shark swimming? I didnt either, when I first looked at it. The key to seeing the hidden shark is to barely cross your eyes, which will create two images of the animation. Then slowly cause the two images to cross each other. You will then see the 3-D swimming shark:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stereogram_Tut_Animated_Shark_Small.gif

- The Big Ten is forming its own TV network. The NFL and NBA did it a few years ago. This is the wave of the future for any form of mass media. Avoid the middle-man, and bring the profits directly to your organization:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060622/SPORTS06/606220344/1054

- Classic movies its OK to hate:
http://www.avclub.com/content/node/49630

If the following picture doesnt terrify you, nothing will...

- What would the founding fathers do about America's current problems? Beats me, but Richard Brookhiser, famed American historian, takes a shot at it. Long article, but worth the read:
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2006/3/2006_3_31.shtml

- Top 10 engineering mistakes:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/start.html?pg=9

- Top 10 most common grammar mistakes. I think I have already committed three of them in today's update:
http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020415,39273376,00.htm

- Listen to almost any radio station in the world, via the internet:
http://www.live-radio.net/info.shtml

- Darn good week for G-Dub. We pop Zarqawi, the special prosecutor says he wont indict supreme master-mind Karl Rove, and Georgie makes a surprise trip to Iraq. To learn how the media is reacting to all of this good news, check out the following site:
http://media.nationalreview.com/

- Christopher Hitchen's makes a wonderful case for the importance of killing Zarqawi:
http://www.slate.com/id/2143305/

- The Feds are digging for Jimmy Hoffa again. This time, they are digging near a farm 35 miles northwest of Detroit. They searched this same farm-house 30 years ago, and didnt find a thing.

If the Feds wanted to find Hoffa so badly, all they have to do is ask my brother or me what happened on that sunny, fateful afternoon, at the Machus Red Fox restaurant on July 30th, 1975. I remember as if it were yesterday (fade to new location...)

My brother and I, age three, were playing in the parking lot of the Machus restaurant with our newly signed Rick Leach U of M nerf football. My parents were inside, convincing the store manager that the strange doodles I had carved into the table using my dinner knife, where we had just previously eaten, was not vandalism, but instead profound religious symbols related to the local Huron Indian community (which still thrives to this day.) According to my folks, my doodles were protected by first amendment privileges, so the restaurant could not rightly sue my parents for the damage I had done to the table. I had no idea if my parents were actually having any success. I assumed they were having success...they had used this excuse before.

My brother and I were tossing the nerf football back and forth. My brother eventually tossed the football over my head, so I spun around to chase it down. When I turned around, I saw three men, all dressed in black and brown suits, standing behind me. An older man, who looked like boiled leather, was holding my nerf football. He said to me, "Son, is this your football?" I said to him, "Yes." He then said, "Do you know who I am?" I just stared at him. I was a nervous child, and rarely answered anyone. He followed with, "I am Jimmy Hoffa, head of the UAW." It was then that I realized I would never get my football back. Even at the tender age of 3, I knew the horrors of unionized labor. I then futilely said to Hoffa, "Mister, could you give me back my football?" I would normally have said 'please', but you have to be tough with these union guys. Dont give them an inch. Hoffa then said to me, "Son...did you know that this football was made in Japan? Look at the label. I am keeping this football. I will get you a real football, made by American workers. Proud, American union-workers who pay outrageous union dues, feel threatened when they vote their conscious, and who purposely create inferior products to keep management from making huge profits." My brother had already run back inside the restaurant. The UAW always gave him gas.

Suddenly, Mr Hoffa's head exploded! There was blood everywhere. I didnt care though. As Mr. Hoffa's body fell to the ground, he dropped my beloved football. I picked it up, and ran back inside. I didnt tell my parents. I didnt tell anyone. I figured this is what happened to people who joined unions.

Here is an article about the recent dig for Hoffa, and a biography of Hoffa:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060518/NEWS11/60518014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hoffa

- A website devoted to letting you know when stuff (like movies, DVDs, video games, books, etc.) will be released:
http://www.releaseguide.com/index.php

- Been meaning to upgrade your computer, cell-phone, or TV? How about you upgrade yourself? It will happen in our life-times:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/medicine/2713146.html?page=1&c=y

- The NY Times asked a couple hundred writers, scholars and editors what is the best fictional book of the past 25 years:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/fiction-25-years.html