Archive for the ‘Found Awesomeness’ Category

Chatroulette Way Better Than The Russian Kind

Monday, March 1st, 2010

This is what happens when the internet is used for good.

I like the idea of Chatroulette, but it seems to sadly fail in the execution. The setup is that you connect to random people across the world for a period of time via your webcam. It’s like Omegle, but with visual stimuli. While I haven’t actually tried the service yet, here is Geek Sugar-commenter Al Pavangkanan’s impression of it.

Typical chatroulette session: penis, penis, penis, jerk, bunch of kids, penis, penis, bunch of kids, penis, jerk, penis, normal person

I wouldn’t want to throw off the delicate balance they have going by adding another “normal person” to the mix, (nor do I wish to make anyone jealous by whipping out my “bunch of kids”) so I’ll keep my webcam chats confined to family members living far away for the nonce. Maybe someday I’ll go on and, when I do, I hope I get someone cool, like the French Moleskine guy.

Faith in humanity: +2 points.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Culled From The 'Net, Found Awesomeness | 2 Comments »

Numbers, Firestats, and Futurama/Hellboy Mashup

Monday, January 18th, 2010

Here’s the numbers for the HokeBlarg week…

Blogs Themes Updated: One. I’m both surprised and elated that it only took a few days, but that’s because I had all of my ducks in a row when I shut the blog down for maintenance. In fact, it might have been finished even quicker if I hadn’t suddenly discovered my love for the series “Chuck” and the fact that I can watch many episodes of the show on Hulu, like, anytime. Holy carp, is that show good. I could be watching it now, in fact… NO! FOCUS, CHRIS!

Over the last few days that the blog has been up I’ve also been adding new plugins and sections. I’ve added a “Best of HokeBlarg” section where you’ll find my personal favorites plus the articles that bring the most traffic here, a Related Posts plugin, the “What Would Seth Godin Do?” plugin for new visitors, and the KartMe sidebar widget. (If you haven’t checked out KartMe, here’s a review that you might enjoy, *wink-wink-tongue-cluck-pistol-hand-gesture*.)

Times I Sweared While Trying To Get The Bit.ly Plugin To Work Properly: 4. Effing Christ was that thing touchy. But I conquered it with my mighty code-sword.

Pear-Scented Candles Burned Down To A Molten Mess: 1/2. The wife bought me a pear-scented candle on sale because she knows how much I like pears. I’ve been burning it pretty non-stop for the last week and it’s still going. I don’t know what kind of government military funding is going into candle technology these days, but keep it up. My best explanation is that there is some sort of extra-dimensional wormhole/wax-recycling mechanism in there.

Views Over The Last 3 Days According To Firestats: 1754! Heck yeah, that’s pretty great. And only around half of those came here looking for futurama stuff. In the interest of appeasing my audience, here’s a sweet Futurama-Hellboy mashup I dug up.

I’ve been testing Firestats recently and I like it quite a lot. It’s a good alternative to Wordpress Stats, even though it doesn’t have the simple chart that WP-Stats does. It tells you a lot about who came to your blog, what country they’re from, and what link they followed to get there. (Evidently, my fan-base is comprised mostly of cartoon-loving Germans, to which I say: Ich liebe auch Cartoons!) I also like Firestats because, well, it’s got “fire” right in the name and their logo has some flames on it, so you know it’s fast.

And that’s your Meta-Monday for you. Happy MLK Day! Tootle, pip!

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in About Blogging Itself, Found Awesomeness, Meta Monday | No Comments »

Is it a Cheese or a Font?

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Along with being a science geek, a language geek, a trivia geek, and a music geek, I also consider myself a typography geek. I’ve got thousands of free fonts on my computer that I’ve collected over many years and whenever I’m putting together a design for, say, a homemade Christmas card or a friend’s concert flyer, I first look to my fonts for inspiration.

My feeling for fonts run strong and deep. I’m a firm believer that the creator of Tempus San ITC, should be taken out into a field somewhere and shot. In the groin.

sex-drugs-helvetica

And somewhere in my youth I picked up a taste for strange and dangerous cheeses. I am a rabid caseophile. I have a “cheese budget”. And I don’t know if it’s a word (and I’m too lazy to look it up right now) but the “Frenchier” the cheese, the better, though my local wine-country cheese makers have been creating some mighty fine and disgusting cheeses lately.

Did you know that many French women continue to eat runny moldy cheeses throughout their pregnancy? I’ve also heard that they drink wine and smoke cigarettes too, but I’ve got to say that the cheese thing seems more dangerous. I’ve had a few blue cheeses that took the top of my head clean off and one particularly disgusting goat cheese that catapulted me into a higher plane of being for a few days. A gruyere killed my little brother. A stilton took my virginity.

I may be slightly exaggerating.

Anyway, there must be a few people out there that admire the simple beauty of typography and the complex tastes of fine cheese, and for those people (and any others who just like to test themselves) I present a game for your edification and enjoyment…

cheeseorfont

I got 78% after 100 questions. Go here to begin: http://cheeseorfont.mogrify.org/ and post your score in the comments. If you do better than me, I shall call you my cheesy superior. Go!

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Food, Found Awesomeness | No Comments »

An Introduction to Tilt-Shift Photography.

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

I’ve been enamored with the whole tilt-shift photography thing lately. Tilt-shift photography, in case you didn’t know, is where photographs are taken with a special lens called (you guessed it) a tilt-shift lens. The result is that real-life things look like painstakingly-crafted miniatures. I know absolutely eff-all about photography, but you don’t have know an f-stop wheel from a flash shoe to be able to appreciate a pretty picture.

tilt_ps

From OhGizmo.com

Recently (well, a year ago), Smashing Magazine published a cool collection of tilt-shift photographs, of which I’ve picked out my favorites here. If you have exactly the same taste in things that I do, this section of the blog post will be a real time saver.

Vincent Laforet

Vincent Laforet

TiltShiftPhotography.net

TiltShiftPhotography.net

Hanna María & Arnar

Hanna María & Arnar

Lachlan Sear

Lachlan Sear

Eric Laforgue

Eric Laforgue

There’s a bunch more, so go check it out.

Recently, Speedicut, who knows me like the backside of his dueling glove, sent me a link to this masterpiece:

Then he sent me a link to an article that tells you how to make your very own tilt-shift lens, which is also pretty neat. Check it here: Build a Tilt-Shift Camera Lens for Peanuts

Well, that’s about where my interest stops. I’ve never been too handy at crafting things in the real world, where I routinely feel as though I am wearing a baseball mitt on each hand, even on the days when I’ve forgotten them at home.

But you, my magnificent reader/photographers, YOU are urged to create some cool tilt-shift photography for me, and the rest of the world, to enjoy.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Found Awesomeness, Technology | No Comments »

Hello, What's This Then: Hidden Zombie Twitter Tale

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

While adding Bonus Links to my previous blog post about the zombie cake on Flickr, I stumbled across this video…

The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks by Max Brooks

Well, as the video was loading on my somewhat-less-than-blazingly-hyperfast DSL connection, it halted a few times to buffer. One of the frames that it just so happened to stall on, approximately 36 seconds in, was this one:

hikersharon

At first, I thought to myself, “Do my eyes deceive me or is there a Twitter URL in that pool o’ blood?” I rewound the video and then, stupidly, I took my glasses off to get a better look. (“Stupidly” because I actually see better with my glasses on.)

There was! There was a hidden (sort of) Twitter address in the book’s promo video!

I decided to do a little sleuthing (actually, I just typed the URL into my address bar) and came upon a Twitter page which told a brief tale of a girl who goes hiking at Joshua Tree and ends up… well, here. Take a look at Sharon Parson’s Twitter page.

Seriously, I live for this shit.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Found Awesomeness, video, zombie | No Comments »

Zombie Fever (Catch It!) Infests Wedding Cake.

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

Zombie Cake 2

This cake makes me want to get married all over again. To a flesh-eating ghoul. Then, I”ll say, “Here’s your ring, baby,” but it’s not a ring. It’s a shotgun. We can skip the marriage part, too.

Bonus Links: Best Zombie Novel Ever, Practical Zombie Survival Guide, Fido, We’re Coming To Get You, Barbara!

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Found Awesomeness, zombie | No Comments »