In case you ever need it, here’s instructions on how to cook with your car’s engine (via). So, which adds more flavor, the carburetor or the manifold?

This incredibly detailed essay compares Calvin and Hobbes to Jack and Tyler from Fight Club (via).

I have a new found respect for Calvin and Hobbes now knowing that they grow up to start Fight Club.

Engadget has a great article on how you make your in-house phone jacks work with VoIP. It actually looks pretty simple too.

Great photo of the winners of a Jack Sparrow look-a-like contest. Via

My wife’s writing laptop’s hinges broke. The cheapest I found new hinges for online was $49.00. Sheesh. In the meantime, she needs a quick fix. I tried duct tape. I’m pretty sure that would fix it; I just couldn’t figure it out how. In the end, I tied a string around it… Surprisingly, the string worked pretty well. Unfortunately, I think my wife is too proud to use it.

Anyway, here’s a guy who thinks he has a solution to the broken laptop hinges problem (via Make), but I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what he was doing.

Here’s a video to a shortened version of ‘The Fastest Man Alive’, by the Austin sextet Sound Team. The full-length track can be found on the group’s debut EP, ‘Work’. While you’re at it, check out ‘Movie Monster’, a very Spoon-ish track off the newly released album ‘Movie Monster’.

Click here to watch ‘The Fastest Man Alive’.
Click here to listen to/download “Movie Monster’.

Last night was my best BUDS birthday. After struggling with what I wanted to get him, I settled on a mildly interesting but not overwhelmingly perfect gift. Of course, to make up for it, I determined to hit the town with him in celebration. No, we didn’t blaze through the town in a hazed spectacular. We merely took a relaxing tour through some interesting bars in the city.

Anyway, when my BUDS brother took leave for the evening, we decided to hit a local martini bar. The place was atmospheric enough, and we mused on the meaning of being a year older (not really). So, happy 26th birthday, bro!

Oh, and what about the whole point that I’m trying to make? If I ever own a tiny martini bar, I’m going to call it Shaken and Stirred. That name came to me in an early morning act of inspiration.

Warning: This may be my crudest post to date, but it needs to be said.

I used to hate using the restroom at work. You might know what I’m talking about. I was one of those people who could only sit on a toilet in the privacy of my own home. Something changed at my current job though. I realized that if you take that break while working (versus painfully holding it all day like I would sometimes try) you were getting paid essentially for you know using the bathroom. In fact, after a while, I found that whenever I was taking a bathroom break at work, I was more relaxed than I would be at home. At home, there’s plenty of things I would rather be doing. At work, well, there’s just work, and I might as well take as long as I need. Besides, is there any better place to let a difficult problem mull through your mind?

So, now I’m a true convert, and you might be thinking I just shared too much.

Here’s a great new track by The Sleepy Jackson. ‘God Lead Your Soul’ has a really magical/theatrical feel to it, but at the same time it’s kind of simple. Lead singer Luke Steele has been heralded as Australia’s answer to Brian Wilson. I don’t know about all that, but he sings about dragons’ sleep cycles and that’s pretty cool in my book.

Single ‘God Lead Your Soul’ is out now.
Upcoming album ‘Personality’ (including this track) hits stores in July.

Click here to watch ‘God Lead Your Soul’.

Mark this incredible vehicle down for my wishlist. It’s a 4 wheeler (ATV) that converts into a jetski. Go on land or water, when you’re this cool, you just don’t care.

I heard they were going to remake the original Karate Kid and all the bad guys ride around on these instead of dirt bikes. Daniel-san is really going to get his butt kicked now; I don’t even care how good he is with a soccer ball.

Continuing with my When Does an Operating System Cost Too Much line of thought, I began wondering if computers are actually getting cheaper, or if the cost is just getting juggled around.

Sure, every year, you get twice the computer for the same price as a year before, but that’s only the hardware side of the story. It seems to me like that cost is just redirected into paying for the software.

Honestly, no matter how many improvements Microsoft makes to Word isn’t it still just a word processor. Aren’t those improvements actually just fixing problems that exisited in the last verision of the software? When do we shut the case on the word processor and consider it solved? Same goes for the spreadsheet, and how come a web browser (a piece of software just as complex and useful) is free when we pay over a $100 for just a spreadsheet and word processor?

For that matter, is it fair to charge for an operating system? You don’t sell a car and then charge an extra premium for the engine that runs it, although that sort of tactic is something that would be associated with car salemen before it would be with computers.

When the OS costs more than a computer… It costs way too much. According to Download Squad, Windows Vista Ultimate will fit that bill.

[W]ith a price tag around $450 … that’s about as much as a budget Dell system will cost you.

Personally, I think the most ANY piece of mass market software should cost is $99. Anything more expensive should at least double as a defense against a zombie horde.

I’ve been listening to ‘Waterloo To Anywhere’ ever since it came out a few weeks ago. This album has taken up a lot of my listening time, but it makes me wonder - why would anyone even care that The Libertines broke up in the first place? The Libertines was one of the best groups to come around in years. Made up by Carl Barat (the dude you’ll hear in the tracks below) and Pete Doherty, who basically left because he became too much to handle as a kind of waste-of-space cokehead.

I’d say The Libertines self-titled debut album is easily one of the greatest punk/rock albums of all time. The second album is good, but in comparison so-so. Now with Carl’s new project Dirty Pretty Things, along with former Libertines drummer Gary Powell, I can see a lot of cool things coming up for this band. Stay clean ya’ll!

Click here to download the mp3 ‘Deadwood’.
Click here to download the mp3 ‘Doctors & Dealers’.

Razorlight’s second album, to be named and released later this year, is way up on the Hans list of most anticipated albums of 06. Thing that’s really cool about Razorlight is that even though it’s bare-bones rock, the songs have a sort of air about them that’s smarter and more creative than most other stuff out there today. The first EP won’t be out till July, but here’s a track off the upcoming album to give you a primer on what it’s all about.

Click here to download the mp3 ‘In the Morning’.

After begging my wife to let me watch Fight Club, I finally snuck in a viewing while she was out and the baby was asleep. This wasn’t the first time I had watched the movie, but it was the best. Sitting there, enjoying the movie’s nihilistic approach to manhood, I realized that I probably shouldn’t have been asking to watch the movie. If I followed Fight Club’s logic, I might have burned down my house, stolen a car, and lived the film instead.

Fight Club is the ultimate guy film, and it’s hard not to like. With themes like underground boxing clubs, pointless mischievous vandalism, and showing up to work unkempt, how can you go wrong? Who doesn’t want to blackmail their boss into letting them stay at home and get paid for nothing at all? Sure, the protagonist had beat himself to a bloody pulp to reach that goal, but he probably felt it was a small price to pay once he had blown up his condo and all his worldly possessions.

I’m sure the movie has deep, thoughtful, underlying themes, but honestly I just thought it was fun. It might have something to say about various disorders like narcolepsy and split personalities, but I kept seeing those devices as more of a means to an end: bare-fisted backyard brawling. As long as a movie has characters who are willing to trade their workday suit and tie for an opportunity to slug it out, I’ll be a captivated audience.

In the vein of journalistic disclosure, I should mention that before watching the movie I invited a buddy over to trade some punches in my backyard. It was by no means a fight club. We wore gloves and tried not to get hit, but I did end up with a black eye for my effort. I told my co-workers that I got hit by a Frisbee. My only regret is that I didn’t snap a picture to post here. I guess I will have to do that next time.