Where is Chuck Norris when you need him?

According to this article in the Pittsburgh Channel, two women dressed like ninjas robbed a convenience store using a samurai sword and a dagger.

Ya know, what? Right on. For some reason I would rather see ninjas robbing people than gang-bangers and druggies. I'm not sure why, but it seems a little more OK if it's ninjas.

That being said, I don't think these people were really ninjas. For one, I don't know if there are even female ninjas. (Maybe these were new-age ninjas?) Also where the @#$% were their throwing stars??

Amateurs.

They must have had some ninja skills because they're still at large. Police are asking for help. If anyone in the Pittsburgh area notices two ninjas eating Slim Jims and pounding Slurpees, please contact the authorities immediately.

Can you sit on your own head?

You gotta see the whole video to get the full effect, but this girl is so flexible it makes me uncomfortable to watch.

NBC offering free episode downloads

OK. NBC pulled their content from iTunes. The world called them fools. But, were we all wrong? Did they have something better up their sleeves?

Unbelievable! They're going to allow people* to download** their shows for FREE***!






*Only Windows users
**All downloads will automatically be deleted after three weeks
***Episodes are embedded with advertising that cannot be skipped

Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

This is some (obviously) edited footage from the "Don't tase me bro!" bro. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, "Don't tase me bro!" is the latest greatest thing in the Interwebs. You can even get "Don't tase me bro!" t-shirts.

Anyhoo, if you're ignorant as to the latest tasing trend, check out this first.

National Talk Like a Pirate Day

Ahoy! I keep forgetting to put this significant holiday on my calendar and it sneaks up on me every year. That's right folks, it's National Talk Like a Pirate Day (why do we have to come into work??).

Using this name generator you can find out what your pirate name is. Check it out and e-mail me (theotherdrummer at gmail dot com) your swashbuckin' new name or leave it in the comments.

Signed sincerely,

Jelly Legs Bryant


OTHER PIRATES I KNOW:

Tatyana - Seal Breath Agnes
Katie - Shark Tooth Ursula
Alysia - Slouchin' Angie Cooke
Andrea - Cap'n Evelyn Seaturd
Aaron - Noseless Butch Slasher
Jeremy W - Cap'n Elmer Ropeburn
Cindee - Androgynous Mary Smithe
Tony - Fancypants Dan Drake
Matt - Cap'n Nigel Graybeard
Hugh - Cap'n Hubert Greenbeard
Pat - Cap'n John Greasepalms
Gary - Cannon-Balls Carl (seriously)
Erin- Cap'n Bernice Sharkbait
Kevin - Cowerin' Randal Cutler
RaeLynn - Bubonic Jasmine Teach
Rob - No-neck Blaine
Marc - Javier the Badly Burnt
Brad - Pirate Garrick the Off-White
Amy - Shoutin' Azriel Kidd
Clarke - Cap'n Patrick Sharkbait
Michael - Cap'n Burt Bloodgut
Julie - Cap'n Eve Buttwipe
Ben - Pirate Jack the Malformed

Creepy guy on the train

I sat across from a creepy guy on the train the other day. He had longer blond hair (think Lancelot from Shrek) and had this weird, Luna-Lovegood-esque, airy look to him that was sitting on the fence between total innocence and serial killer. He wore stonewashed cargo-jeans from straight out of the early 90's and - get this - I never saw him blink.

When I sat down he just stared at me. It was uncomfortable. (If I make eye contact at all with people on the train it's just a quick nod of acknowledgment and that's it.)

After he was done looking at me he stared out the window. I, too, looked out the window, thankful to be free of his eerie gaze only to see him staring at me in the reflection! At that point I think I peed myself a little.
As I looked down toward my bag (to get my Moleskine to record the experience) I noticed his thumb had a sore on it and it was bleeding. My first instinct was to tell him about it so he wouldn't get blood all over his cargo jeans, but then I stopped myself and watched in horror as he raised it to his mouth, sucked on it a bit with that dreamy/spaced-out look on his face and put it back on the seat next to him. He did this a couple more times, seemingly gaining some unholy power from drinking his own blood.

At one of the stops a girl about our age came and sat next to him. She was frail looking, as if she'd been battling some disease her whole life and would break in half if she tripped.

Our friend the psycho stared at her with unblinking eyes, looking her up and down a couple of times before lifting his hand and sucking on his wound again.

Extremely creepy.

Nothing ever came of it. I haven't seen the guy since, thankfully. But come to think of it, I haven't seen the frail girl either...

Hopefully dreams really don't come true

Wow. Last night was a weird one. I woke up this morning thinking I was mostly bald.

Here's why.

I was playing poker with Martha Stewart last night. Texas Hold 'Em. She raised me after I was all in, so I had nothing left to offer but my hair. So I wagered my hair. I had two pair so I was feeling pretty confident.

She had a full house. Apparently Martha is quite a card shark. Must have learned a thing or two in jail.

So I came home to my apartment and broke out my electric razor. I hesitated thinking, "I'll never see Martha Stewart again. She'll never know if I do it or not." But then I told myself that I gave my word (even if it was over a poker table to a dishonest celebrity) so I was honor-bound to do it. That, and I've always been kind of curious about what I'd look like bald.

So using the sideburn trimmer started cutting away swaths of my beautiful locks. I got the front, right quarter of my head done when the battery on my razor started dying.

Panicked, I tried to move faster because I had somewhere to be and didn't want to go with only part of my head shaved.

It was a pretty real dream because when I woke up I instinctively moved my hand all around my head checking for the shaved spots.

What do you think it means?

Corporate recognition

I like where I work. I like my job. For example, when you hit your two year anniversary the head-honchos give you a small gift to show their appreciation of your hard word and dedication.

My friend Jeremy really appreciated his.

Apple: iPhone owners, we're sorry. Here's $100. (Kind of.)

Well, yesterday was great and dreadful. Great for those who held off buying iPhones - it's now $200 cheaper.

Dreadful for those who laid down $600 just six weeks ago for Apple's latest and greatest - it's now $200 cheaper.

Naturally, those early adopters were a bit ticked off. And rightly so.

Steve Job's response? "Well, that's what happens in technology".

In other words, "We knew our faithful customers would take the bait and pay a premium for the iPhone. After we've milked them we'll drop the price by a third and appeal to everybody else."

Bad form Steve!

Now Apple's PR elite have convinced Steve (probably under duress) to issue a statement apologizing ("Now say you're sorry") and offer early adopters a $100 credit to the Apple Store ("Now say you're sorry and mean it").

This is the same runaround they gave me when they kept my computer for a month and then pretended like they were doing me a huge favor by giving me $100 off (a purchase of $300 or more).

You can count the amount of stuff you can get in the Apple Store for under $100 on one hand. It's a ploy to hit you up for more money.

In the words of Fake Steve:

Anyway, it's been a pretty good week. We're screwing everyone in sight. We screwed you. We screwed AT&T. We screwed NBC. Man oh man. If we make it to the end of this week without angry picketers chanting outside our campus I'll be shocked. Peace out, suckas.

Frigtards.

Does the iPod Touch have Bluetooth? - UPDATED

Check the upper right corner. Squint a bit. There. See it? Next to the battery meter. Yup. Lest mine eyes deceive me, that's a Bluetooth icon.

Unannounced Bluetooth feature? No Mail or Notes programs? Delayed, unspecified launch date ("a few weeks")? Something is fishy. And does anybody else think the iPod Touch's home screen looks a little sparse and underwhelming when compared to the iPhone's?Anyone care to speculate as to why there would be a Bluetooth icon on the Touch when Stevie J and Party didn't mention a thing about it yesterday?

UPDATED: Nope. Apple confirmed no Bluetooth. Oh well. I suppose we can still hope for a Mail app.

iPod Touch announced - UPDATED

No my friends. That isn't the iPhone. It's the new iPod Touch. $299 for 8 gigs and $399 for 16 gigs. Boo-ya.

They also dropped the price of the iPhone TWO HUNDRED BUCKS to just $399 for the 8 gig model. Nice.

But back to the iPod Touch.

My dreams kinda-sorta came true. Yes, it has WiFi with Safari. You can download tracks from iTunes straight onto your iPod which is cool, but I don't really care so much about that. You can even have all your contacts and calendars synced as well.

But there's no e-mail.

Seriously.

Why in the world would you put a full web browser and access to an online music store and not put the e-mail program on there?? I might have actually used my .Mac e-mail address if they did. I suppose they could add it later but why not now?

Not saying I wouldn't want one, and I'm sure they'll sell loads of these for Christmas, but c'mon Apple...no e-mail?

P.S. Nanos got revamped to handle video and the iPods we know and love got MASSIVE capacity upgrades,rebranded as iPod Classic, and some smooth new looks. New colors on the shuffles.

UPDATE: What the heck? The Nano has a Notes program (just like every other iPod ever released) but the Touch...you know, the iPod with the full-screen keyboard...doesn't have that either. I don't get it.

Favor for a husband of a friend

Hey, a friend's husband is up for Connect Magazine's top 25 people who influenced Utah business. Cool, huh?

If you have a sec, please click here and vote for Jeff Barnes (5th from the top).

If you do this, good luck will follow you and your family for generations. If you don't, your dog will die and you'll lose your job.

Alabama teacher accused of raping student, fired, still getting paid

Seriously, I need to make a category on this blog just for stories about people in Alabama. Anyhoo, this teacher in Alabama who was accused of raping one of his students has collected $100,000 and received two raises despite being fired for two years.

Jigga-what?

"He is the beneficiary of a legal twist in a 2004 Alabama law that was supposed to reform the state's teacher dismissal process," sez this article.

Hmmmm. Get fired. Keep getting paid AND get raises. Yup. Sounds like the Alabama educational system has it all figured out.

One thing's for sure. If I were a teacher there and I heard about this, I'd be royally ticked off. "Sorry, we can't pay you more. We don't have the budget."

AT&T: we drop more calls than our competition

Apparently the Better Business Bureau looked into AT&T's little claim that they have the fewest dropped calls. They found what everybody else already knew: it was a load of steaming cow dung.

According to WIRED:

Turns out, the assertion was never really true, and was based on only a small part of a larger Telephia report. As a whole, the report notes that AT&T Wireless did not have the most reliable network in places like New York, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles, according to Broadband Reports. Recent studies from Consumer Reports and JD Power mirror these findings, and have placed Cingular/AT&T at or near the the bottom of their rankings for reliability and satisfaction.

Looks like you've been caught lying to everyone AT&T! Oh, snap!

I really can't wait until the iPhone is available on other networks. Oh, wait. It is.


Photo via Gizmodo