Concept stolen from The Oatmeal.

My friends Felicity Fenton and Mike Hensley had a pinata party a few weekends ago to celebrate their brand new marriage which was tons of fun. A lof of people made pinatas which included a mini guitar filled with candy rings, a creepy mime looking guy, a jellyfish, and the bride and groom naked.

For mine, I put together a cow pinata using mostly what I had around. Here’s how to make it:

You will need:

• Small box (I used a double cereal box from Costco)
• A few sheets of plain white paper and a black marker
• Cottage cheese, 48oz
• Plastic grocery bag
• Ketchup, medium bottle
• Barbeque sauce, medium bottle
• Toilet paper rolls, 4
• Empty ‘Chinese food’ box
• Spaghetti and meatballs, about two cups
• Wire
• Tape
• Latex glove
• Half a pencil
• Milk

Directions

1. Leaving one end open, cover the box in paper and draw spots on it.
2. Draw spots on the toilet paper rolls. About 1/8 inch from the top of two of the legs, poke the wire through one side and up through the hole. Position the front legs on the body and push the wire up through the box and tie it together. Repeat for the back legs.
3. Put a loop of wire through the middle of the cows back to tie off the cow. Wrap this around so there are a couple strands
4. Fill the Chinese food box with spaghetti and meatballs. Place it like the head in the above picture, with the Chinese food box on the closed end of the box, and the wire handle on top of the cow’s back. Attach this to the box using the wire—two loops poking thru on the two corners of the Chinese food box’s corner.
5. Fill the latex glove part of the way up with milk, then (this is kind of tricky) blow up the latex glove a little bit, and tie off the hole like a balloon.
6. Poke a hole in the bottom of the cow big enough to fit the knot of the udder (the latex balloon). Push the knot through and tie the glove to the half of the pencil on the inside of the box.
7. Place the plastic bag in the box and use the wire to attach it to several points of the box—these are ‘rip points’.
8. Mix together the cottage cheese, ketchup and barbeque sauce ad pour it into the plastic bag
9. Tie off the bag and close the open end of the box, take another piece of paper, tape it over the open end and draw spots and (optionally) a butt-hole

The smashing of the cow turned out pretty much as nicely as I could have expected. First the udder was smashed off splashing milk all over the girl who hit it (I warned her, don’t worry). Then the head was smashed off smearing spaghetti and meatballs all over the garage door. The only downside is that the body was finally just whacked into some bushes and it didn’t do that emptying of the bowels kind of dumping I was hoping for.

And apologies to Mike for the spaghetti sauce all over his shirt…

You better start the MS Reactor® Ballmer, cuz Kuato lives on the Microsoft campus!

As you may already know, convicted digital pirate Jammie Thomas-Rasset has been ordered to pay $80,000 per illegally downloaded song for a total of 1.9 million dollars. This has become a landmark case because Jammie, a single mother from Minnesota, is not exactly a hardened criminal. See a news article here.

Clearly this case is setting the precedent for later digital piracy trials. But even clearer is the ridiculousness of this fine: 80,000 times higher than she would have paid for these songs on iTunes.

Now I’m definitely not arguing that digital piracy should be legal and I don’t wear Pirate Bay t-shirts. Stealing another’s intellectual property should be a crime because it violates the licensing of that property, it’s all very simple. However any fines for individuals who violate these licenses need to be more in line with the damage they have caused. Does downloading 24 Justin Timberlake tracks really cost the record industry $80,000 each time?

Furthermore, I understand the need for a punitive aspect of these fines, and I don’t think you should only be fined $1 per song just because that’s what they would cost on iTunes. The fine needs to be higher than the cost to discourage violation. But this obscenely high verdict has led me to two fairly obvious conclusions.

(Julia Cheng/AP)
Jammie Thomas-Rasset

The first is that Jammie Thomas-Rasset is being used as an example to discourage a crime that is very difficult to prosecute (except for Comcast users). However, the United States is supposed to have a fair and just legal system and I do not think any such system should ever make an example out of any individual. It is incredibly unfair to fine this poor woman $1.9 million in order to make a point to the entirety of US citizens.

But my second conclusion is far more serious. Jammie’s case proves that the system of government in the United States has become so inundated with corporate lobbyists that it is no longer a government that represents its people. It has become a government of the dollar, for the dollar and by the dollar.

Let’s take Barack Obama as an example. Obama’s main platform was one of change: he was elected mainly on the belief that his presidency would no longer be ‘politics as usual’ in the US. But once in office Barack appointed five RIAA lawyers to the Department of Justice. Can anyone argue that this is at all representative of the people?

Appointing not one but five lawyers from a single corporate interest flies blatantly in the face of the ideals the United States was founded upon. And we’re not talking about just any corporate interest here, this is the Recording Industry Association of America, one of the most notoriously greedy organizations around, stomping over artists and consumers for over 50 years.

I never thought Jammie Thomas-Rasset would actually be charged this ridiculous fine. And I naively believed that people in this country had begun to realize that the RIAA’s complaints about digital piracy stemmed from an immeasurable greed. All the commercials they aired about illegal downloading seemed so ridiculous, like they were clutching at straws. But it looks like the RIAA is winning, which can mean nothing other than that the American people are losing.

And here are the top 5:

#5 – Rainbows in the Water Lady

Rainbows in the Water Lady

One of my personal favorites, rainbows in the water lady combines insanity with stupidity in that perfectly redneck way. “And I just want to know what the HECK they are putting in our water. We all know these rainbows weren’t there 20 years ago!”

#4 – The Spirit of Truth

The Spirit of Truth

Spirit of Truth is a YouTube classic. And I can tell, he is NOT faking this one. He’s totally insane and loud, which means he definitely makes this list.

#3 – Poodle Aerobics Lady

Poodle Aerobics Lady

She’s dressed like a poodle-woman, doing aerobics with people in poodle costumes. Whether she’s an art student, actress or whatever this lady is definitely insane.

#2 – Crazy German Gamer Kid

Crazy German gamer kid

There are a lot of different translations going around as to what this kid is saying, but I don’t think you need any of them to tell that this kid needs more than a little Ritalin. And I’m pretty sure I saw this in a Today Show special on video game craziness.

If you like crazy video game nerds check out:
The crazy FPS Guy

#1 – Winged Disc, Raised Disc Lunatic

Winged disc, raised disc lunatic

OK so you know all those government lists of crazy people? Well I REALLY hope this guy is on them because he’s fucking nuts.

I just thank god that he sounds like he lives in the UK, which is just about as far away from me as possible (and I thank whichever god will make this guy not want to come over here and blow me up)

If you haven’t had enough:

Freemasons

Human flesh for sale in supermarkets

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Ninja Turtles

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES heroes in a half shell TURTLE POWER! They’re the world’s most fearsome fighting team….they’re heroes in a half-shell and they’re green. When the evil Shredder attacks, them turtle boys don’t cut him no slack!

Honestly, I could keep going.

Check it out in German.

2. Fraggle Rock

Fraggle Rock Theme

The Fraggle Rock theme is great to sing (and clap) along to. Sorry this video is from the cartoon version, but the song’s the same.

3. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

The Fresh Prince theme is another one I can sing along with from start to finish, I thought I was so cool when I was a kid.

4. Duck Tales

Duck Tales Theme

Duck Tales is the king when it comes to super peppy theme songs, and these guys do a pretty nice dance to it. Woo-ooo-oooo!

5. Doogie Howser

Doogie Howser

You’re the man Doog! Neil Patrick Harris was awesome as the innocent Doogie Howser, and he’s also pretty nice as a creepy adult, with a hilarious cameo in Harold and Kumar and a great portrayal of Dr. Horrible.

6. Captain Planet

Captain Planet

This one’s a little weird because it’s actually the closing theme song as opposed to the opener. They really thought outside the box with Captain Planet, which is especially apparent because he’s the first gay superhero.

Check out the German version

7. Knight Rider

Knight Rider Theme

Knight rider had a totally bad-ass theme song and the in-show music was really nice too. It was later sampled by Busta Rhymes in the 90’s.

8. Inspector Gadget

Inspector Gadget Theme Song

DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN INSPECTOR GADGET!

9. MacGyver

MacGyver Intro

You gotta love MacGyver, he can pretty much do anything. This one’s ESPECIALLY good on yoooouuuutuuuube:

10. Super Mario Brothers (The Show)

Super Mario Brothers Theme

Oh man this one has a special place in my heart, I for one was definitely “hooked on the brothers”.

It’s pretty embarrassing but I remember dancing along with the song in the ending credits:

Do the Mario!

The whole thing left me wondering, what would happen if I point the two webcams at each other and turn them on at the same time?

So what am I to do? Trader Joe’s has always had a ton of natural/organic junk foods, and with the recent “green-washing” trend I’m seeing an ever-expanding variety of hippy products for lazy people like me.

So here’s a run-down of the five major junk food groups: Soda, Hot Pockets, Chocolate Milk, Frozen Waffles and of course Fast Food.

So I decided to make a page devoted to misspelling this word, because I’m certain there are others like me out there.

Ways I misspell Javascript

Chart and percentage breakdown

• Javsacript : 31%
• Javascrpit : 24%
• Javascirpt : 18%
• Javscript : 16%
• Javscaript : 8%
• Javscraipt : 3%
• Javababe : <1%

Quantifying the misspellings

Estimating the times I type “javascript” each week, between my web dev work, email, IM and blogs brings me to somewhere around 40 a week.

Most times I notice right away if I’ve misspelled Javascript, and I fix it on the spot. Figure the reaction time plus the edit totals 1 second. However, every 8 times or so I don’t notice the mistake. There’s a 50% chance that it will happen in IM or email, and cause no error. However figuring out the error, fixing it and reloading the browser takes on average around 30 seconds (I work in Firebug so it goes quickly ).

So now for the math. To figure out how much time is lost when I misspell Javasccript it’s just:

7/8 * 1 second for the times I notice immediately + 1/8 * ( 30 seconds * 50% chance I won’t notice it AND it causes a code error ) )

or:

7/8 * 1 + 1/8 * (30 * .5) = 2.75 seconds lost every time I misspell Javascript

Time lost annually

Now multiply this by the number of times I misspell it in a year:

2.75 seconds lost * 25% chance of misspelling * 40 times misspelled each week * 52 weeks in a year = 1430 seconds each year!!!!

Sure that’s only 23 minutes a year, but who’s counting?