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Strangest. Fact. Ever. Found via the great 700 Level. John Heder is of course the guy who played Napoleon Dynamite.

John Heder’s Fast Facts:
* Raised in a strict Mormon household and spent two years in Tokyo as a Mormon missionary.
* Majored in 3D Animation at Brigham Young University, alongside his identical twin brother.
* Won Breakthrough Male Performance and Best Musical Performance at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards for his role in Napoleon Dynamite.
* Is a nephew of former NFL player Vai Sikahema.

Source: John Heder’s TV guide page.

Last night at the Bamboo Bernies open mic, Justin threw his brother Jeff a surprise party and invited Jonah Matranga (far, onlinedrawing, grattitude, etc.) to stop by and play an awesome set.

I have seen the future.

And it is good.

The cans are regular 16 ounce size but only contain 10.5 ounces of liquid, as the rest of the space contains the cooling apparatus: a dessicant that when activated draws the heat from the beverage into a heat sink, causing the drink to lower a minimum of 30F in a remarkable three minutes.

Sure it will cost more, but it’s still pretty cool.

(Via 700 Level)

I spent the weekend in Milwaukee and Antioch, IL for my cousin Eddie’s wedding. Great times were had by all, but the trip home was an ordeal.

I could have sworn I heard that blades less than 4 inches were allowed on flights and the mini Swiss Army knife I keep on my keychain would be fine. Turns out you’re only allowed to bring on scissors with blades less than four inches. Knives are still banned, so I lost my dull two inch knife.

The flight left close to on time, but as we approached Philly we had to wait about a half hour to land. I lost count of how many times we circled the airport.

The flight wouldn’t have been too bad except for the two Ivy League profs in the seats behind me talking so loud the whole plane could hear them. Not only that, but they were having the most boring conversation on Earth. (Parents are pushy when their genius kids don’t get in to Princeton. Who knew?)

We landed and went down to the Terminal F baggage claim and there was a huge group of passengers waiting for their bags. Something was wrong with their system and none of the bags were making it to the terminal. Every few minutes a bag or two would come up on the conveyor belt, so it was about 45 minutes before we got all our luggage. But we were in luck! The shuttle bus to the economy lot just pulled up and we ran to catch it.

The bus pulled away but at the last minute it stopped and let us on. Our luck had turned.

For the worse.

I noticed everyone on the bus was wearing airline uniforms. We were on the bus to the employee lot, which looks exactly like the economy lot bus except it says “Employee Lot” on the front. We only saw the back.

We rode all the way to the secret place where pilots, flight attendants, sky caps, cashiers, and ticket agents park their cars and then had to wait a few minutes while the drivers changed shifts. I asked the bus driver if he could drive us over to the economy lot, but he said no. We had to ride back to the airport and then walk through it again from departures to the Terminal A baggage claim. doh.

We finally made our way back and got on the right bus. The bus was empty since we were at Terminal A, which gave us front row seats for the grand finale of this crazy day. By the time the bus picked up passengers from C it was completely full. We passed Terminal D and the bus driver briefly opened the door to tell the waiting passengers there would be another bus in 2 minutes. We drove to Terminal F, where I once again remind you is home to the faulty baggage claim system.

The driver opened the door again to tell the waiters another bus would be there soon when all of a sudden people started flooding on to the bus. Some European travelers were ticked about having to wait two hours for their bags and a shouting match erupted between the bus driver and the people trying to get on the bus. He refused to go and they refused to get off. Everyone on the bus started yelling at our European visitors to get the hell off the bus and listen to the bus driver.

Finally, the bus driver let them stay as long as they got behind the yellow line. They ended up coming into the middle of the bus where we were. Words were exchanged between them, the passengers, and the bus driver (over the intercom) for the duration of the ride.

Oh well, that’s the story of our trip from MKE to PHL. It took us about 3 hours from when we landed to when we got home.

Check out this incredible video of just how crazy it is to drive in India.

I’m getting really freaked out by all the spam I’m getting lately containing quotes from Neal Stephensen’s Cryptonomicon. Here is one of of the subjects:

The knock on Rudolf von Hacklheber’s door had come at four o’clock in the morning, a time exploited by the Gestapo for its psychological effect. Rudy is wide awake. Even if bombers had not been pounding Berlin all night long, he would have been awake, because he has neither seen nor heard from Angelo in three days. He throws a dressing gown over his pajamas, steps into slippers, and opens the door of his flat to reveal, predictably, a small, prematurely withered man backed up by a couple of classic Gestapo killers in long black leather coats

Weird!

Others have had the same problem.

We had a town wide yard sale on Saturday and the weather was great. We unloaded a ton of stuff and made about $300. I started taking our stuff outside at 7:45AM and our yard was packed by 8:00! The vultures were even going through our boxes that we hadn’t unpacked yet. Haha.

The only disappointing part was the few number of Audubon residents who participated. I think they should have promoted it a little more. Maybe next year.

Want to know how to trade one red paperclip for a house? This guy is doing it, although he’s not quite there yet. He traded the paper clip for a fish pen, and then the fish pen for a door knob, then the door knob for a coleman stove someone didn’t want, and so on. His current item is a full year’s worth of rent in Phoenix, AZ! The place looks pretty nice, too.

I pulled out an old hard drive tonight and found something I thought I’d lost for good. When I was in college I spent a few weeks working on a game in C++/DirectX that could be described as a cross between Spy Hunter and Grand Theft Auto. I never finished it, but it’s playable and you can use four different vehicles.

Download Nighthunter

Use the arrow keys to move around.
Spacebar shoots
Delete exits your vehicle.

I think I fixed the last bug in the team games. I use two different queries to retrieve the players in each game and I forgot to update one of them before. If the current team game goes smooth I’ll make it an official game option.

I’ve been playing around with ajax and I think I might be able to include some of it in Odd Man In. I was able to mock up a test where the page checks for new game messages periodically and it loads them in. The cool part is that it only refreshes the messages and not anything else so you don’t have to reload the whole page.