How to have a Supernatural Halloween
When I first heard about “Supernatural” I loved the idea of show, but thought it would never last since when I tend to like a show it gets cancelled. For those of you who haven’t seen “Supernatural” here’s a brief description from Wikipedia:
Plot
The series follows the brothers Dean and Sam Winchester, played by Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, who travel across the country in a black 1967 Chevy Impala investigating and combating paranormal events and other unexplained occurrences, many of them based on folklore, myths, and American urban legends as well as classic supernatural creatures such as vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. Eric Kripke, the series’ creator, cites Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman and American Gods as influences on Supernatural , along with American Werewolf in London and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey .
The plot of the series has evolved over time, beginning initially with the Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean, looking for their father throughout most of season one. Once they find him, the show becomes about killing Azazel, the yellow-eyed demon responsible for the death of their mother. This is accomplished, but not until after Azazel’s plans are completed and a door to Hell is opened, although only momentarily, releasing a horde of demons into the world. This event also sees the death of Sam, who is subsequently resurrected by Dean selling his soul at the end of season two. In the third season, the plot of the show focuses on trying to save Dean from his deal. Along the way, they meet a demon named Ruby, who has an interest in Sam and claims to be able to help save Dean, as well as Bela Talbot, an "acquirer" and seller of occult objects who is constantly a thorn in their side. The brothers eventually manage to track down the demon who holds Dean’s contract, a powerhouse named Lilith who also wants Sam dead. However, Sam and Ruby ultimately fail to save Dean, who is killed and sent to Hell. Season four begins with Dean, miraculously returning from Hell, awakening dazed and confused in a grave. He was apparently rescued by a supposed angel named Castiel on orders from God. Sam on the other hand, has further developed his abilities with the help of Ruby during the months that Dean has been dead. It is soon revealed that Dean was revived to help stop Lilith’s plan of breaking the 66 seals, which would let Lucifer walk free once again.
Ironically the show tends to have pretty good Halloween episodes… well for the show “Supernatural” every episode is a Halloween episode. This morning after recovering from last night’s food poisoning I watched this year’s Halloween episode and it was awesome. Tonight I’m most likely going to watch some episodes from the first season and enjoy a bowl of popcorn.
Supernatural DVD’s
I CANZ NO SPAMZ
A while ago Sarah Lacy (Tech Reporter) had a contest that she twittered on “Twitter”, that her book publisher was the same one who going to publish the “I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER”. So she announces that her publisher gave her some free copies to give away and so she announced a contest for the funniest picture that someone could create (I can has cheezburger style) about a famous tech celebrity. So I whipped up one about John C. Dvorak since I know the two happen to know each other (see appeared on his CrankyGeeks show). I submitted it, but didn’t get a response; I thought it was funny.
Click on the Image for a Larger Version:
Currently Listening To:
Kansas - The Best of Kansas - Carry On Wayward Son
Make Windows XP More Stable… Remove Desktop Search
After downgrading from Vista I wanted something like the built in search that Vista has. So I went looking and what I found is what Microsoft calls their “Live Desktop Search”. Desktop Search searches in the background when your computer is idle or when you right click the icon in the taskbar and click “Index Now”. Overall it’s pretty fast when you want to search but it’s got one main problem. The problem happens when you have to shutdown other than by going to “Start” and doing it the old fashioned way; “Desktop Search” will automatically clear out the index you’ve already indexed (odds are it took several days just like mine did) and starts over from scratch. This wouldn’t be such a problem unless XP became so unstable since “Service Pack 3”… so now my install crashes quite often. But what I found out is that it wasn’t “Service Pack 3” making XP unstable it was “Desktop Search”. Ironically after installing “Desktop Search” to make my life easier it was the application making my life so much harder. So basically I would stay from any program that does desktop search in general, just use what’s built into your operating system, it was designed to work the operating system originally, so it shouldn’t make it unstable unlike any third party add-ons.
Currently Listening To:
Vanessa Carlton - Be Not Nobody - Ordinary Day
No it’s My Avatar… No Pictures
This was article that I was writing for Flywire.org, but never got around to posting.
Here at Flywire.Org we take your comments and suggestions quite seriously, but this one comment received on a article about “How to Hack Lively”; was so hilarious it deserves its own article. Lately I’ve been so busy I’ve been slacking on my duties as editor and admin for a couple of weeks, but for this hilarious comment I’m going to make some time so I can comment on it.
Author: Morgana | Date: August 25, 2008 | Time: 6:53 pm
Peyton, I would like to ask that you please take down the vids that contain my image (yes I know its an Avatar) but you took the vids without me knowing and out of respect I would like for u you to take them down.
This is the stupidest request I’ve ever heard first of… I hear by nominate you for a Darwin Award.
Currently Listening To:
America - History: America’s Greatest Hits - Sister Golden Hair
I See Non-Existent People
Well not exactly, but after watching all 13 episodes of “Imaginary Bitches” in a row… I almost thought I did. The star of “Imaginary Bitches” is Eden Riegel (Bianca “All My Children”) who is an excellent actress and not to mention really hot. When I started to watch “Imaginary Bitches” I actually had very low expectations, but boy was I surprised at what I saw. Eden Riegel plays a character that ironically is named Eden, but the funnier part is that the people who play Eden’s friends are also Soap stars… as well as some of her real life friends. The synopsis of the story line is that Eden’s friends don’t have time for her anymore since they’ll all got boyfriends so Eden invents a few imaginary friends; of course when you think about imaginary friends you’d think they’d be supportive imaginary friends but no… their bitches (hence the title). While watching you’d think it would be hard to act with people that aren’t there, but for Eden it just seems natural and it flows quite nicely from scene to scene. For the guys out there who are thinking well this can’t possibly be something I’d want to watch, trust me you really shouldn’t miss this. It’s very comical plus towards the end of season 1 (Why yes apparently a season 2 is in the works) Eden’s character Eden thinks she might be a lesbian (which ironic since her character of Bianca on AMC is also a lesbian), but at the last moment she gets left hanging. Watching “Imaginary Bitches” was like watching an Indie movie for me, it was a great story line and if I could buy a DVD (hint hint) would surely be one of my all time favorite films.
Update: I just found out a DVD will be available to buy November 3, 2008
Main Website: http://www.imaginarybitches.com/Home.html
You got watch the whole first season on Youtube for Free on their official channel
http://ca.youtube.com/user/ImaginaryBitches
Currently Listening To:
The Veronicas - 4ever - Single - 4ever
What Day Is It?
Working for yourself isn’t as glamorous as the idea sounds… it’s actually better, but it does have its downsides. For instance I wake up whenever I want to wake up. For the past few years I would never get out of bed before noon, and it was great. For the past few months though I’ve been getting up at like 6 or 8am; but for the past few weeks I’ve been up at 3am or earlier. It all started because people would make comments that I could possibly be productive sleeping in everyday, I knew their assumptions were unproven and baseless; but over time it got to me. For most of my life I’ve been a night person and before the years that I worked for myself I wouldn’t even go to bed before 6am (I tried to aim for 3am). So I’m awake and its 4:50am as I’m writing this and I’m finding that I do really love mornings, although at 6pm I really start to get tired.
(This was a post that I wrote about two weeks ago, but never posted.)
Currently Listening To:
Three Dog Night - Three Dog Night: The Complete Hit Singles - One
Why the iPhone will Fail
This article might sound more like an article about the wisdom of crowds than the infamous iPhone, but you’d be surprised why my theory applies. The whole buzz about the iPhone is that it’s new and no one has it. Yes I know a lot of “techies” have the iPhone and a lot of people in Silicon Valley art touting the benefits of the iPhone and how it just makes mobile phones more fun. But at the end of the day the iPhone isn’t in the hands of the average Joe. This is where the wisdom or stupidity of crowds comes in; first off I’ve never really met anyone who actually likes AT&T. I mean when you’ve been around as long as AT&T has the bodies really start to pile up… hmm sorry I meant complaints (but you get my point). Plus the iPhone is expensive and I know the dropped the price with the 3G version… but not really. I mean it looks like a price drop if basic math is a foreign concept to you and you can’t gather how much the iPhone actually costs over the 2 year contract. Plus since most people who actually buy the phone won’t dare downgrade to a crappier phone since they’ve gotten use to all of the wonderful Apple Features like email… camera phone… and some other stuff that Apple claims they’ve just made cooler. I mean with all of the talk over the applications that you can download and run on the iPhone it almost makes Apple sound like this really cool innovator. I mean who ever thought of the idea to run applications on a mobile phone oh wait Microsoft did its called Windows Mobile Platform. Every Smartphone on the planet with the exception of the Blackberry (or crackberry for those obsessive users) runs Windows Mobile; and no I don’t consider the iPhone a “Smartphone”… it’s a “DumbPhone” because it makes you think everything it does is unique. Of course when the iPhone hits critical mass and every yahoo on the street has one it will cease to be “cool” anymore and the techies will move on the next cool most have unique phone, which in reality will just be the same old phone with a shiny new packaging and a cool sounding new name.
Currently Listening To:
George Michael - Ladies & Gentlemen - The Best of George Michael - Faith
Who Are You Again?
While testing out Zimbra Desktop I learned that Yahoo let’s you basically use it like Outlook (as in it downloads mails in the background). Normally you have to pay like 19.95 a year for their pro account, but for Zimbra Desktop Yahoo lets you have that feature for free. So I end up logging into my Yahoo mail account and I have the classic interface on so I turn that off figuring that’s why Zimbra Desktop isn’t working. Once I do that I get the pretty Ajax interface to Yahoo Mail and apparently at some point someone added me as a contact (I think in Yahoo Instant Messenger) and so I checked yes and I checked out the profile. I literally have no clue who this person is, I did a Google search for the username and found her Photobucket account. I have photos of her now, but not a clue who this person is. This is the point I make about instant messaging quite often, that people tend to forget these weird usernames and can’t associate them with the person. This “invite contact” could have been from years ago; although I’m hoping that Yahoo has a limit and they expire at some point… but apparently not. Elaine looks familiar, but I just can’t put the face to the name. I think it’s the whole “IM’ing” doesn’t feel like natural speech and that’s why I avoid it in general (except for business).
Currently Listening To:
Samantha Mumba - Gotta Tell You - Baby, Come Over (This Is Our Night)
College was Never like This
Most of the time when it comes to something Brit I tend to be a deer in headlights (in a good way), and my latest discovery is no different. Even if you’ve never lived in England you’ve probably heard of the infamous British soap “EastEnders”, but there’s another just as famous soap called Hollyoaks. Soap Operas here in the US have been on a steady decline for several years now, with the networks trying everything left and right to try and improve ratings. This is where the WOW that is “Hollyoaks” comes into play, its set at “Hollyoaks Community College”; not to mention it’s got a cast full of hot young people. Like most soap operas the people playing the young people are obliviously much older. But if American soap operas were stocked with such hot talent, I don’t think the networks would have a hard time getting people to watch. Plus the opening is something that American Soaps could inspire to with it’s in your face intro.
Halloween is Over
Well technically it’s really only over for kids; Halloween is from 6pm to 8pm where I live. Although I remember when I was young, the times officially were from 6pm to 9pm (that is for the people who hadn’t closed their doors yet), and even then kids were out at 5pm (sometimes even at 4:30pm, but that was in very few numbers). When Halloween falls on a Friday like this year Halloween tends to be for Adults and people will still partying till the early morning hours. Of course it seems that Halloween these days really is more for adults than it ever was. Look at the fact that costume stores have tons of slutty outfits for women (this is a good thing), which is understandable for the female who wants to be someone else for a night (let’s face it the guys aren’t exactly complaining on this subject either). As time goes on costumes will get more and more elaborate with technology increasing the realistic nature of the outfits, then again a woman in a simple pirates outfit tends to do it for most guys. Hope you had fun kids, and a word of advice for the adults make sure you pass out somewhere comfortable, cause let’s face it you’re not as young as you use to be.
Family Abandons 9 Children under “Safe Haven” Law
Governor of Nebraska Dave Heineman said he couldn’t wait any longer to address what’s been called a state embarrassment. The “embarrassment” centers around Nebraska’s loosely worded “Safe Haven” law, which in a few months has resulted parents abandoning nearly 2 dozen children as old as 17 years old. The governor had planned to wait till the next regular session in January. The Governor said Wednesday that:
"We’ve had five in the last eight days,"
"We all hoped this wouldn’t happen."
Of course it’s not like they will be doing anything about this now since the special session that they are holding early doesn’t start until November 14th. They want to change the law so it will protect the infants for which it was intended for.
"This law needs to be changed to reflect its original intent", said the Governer
Normally “Safe Haven” laws are so parents can drop off children that they can’t take care. It’s basically "No Questions Asked” as the phrase goes, and the parents can’t be prosecuted. Normally most states limit the time to 3 days, but for Nebraska there was no such limitation; parents from other states having been driving to Nebraska so they can take advantage of this loophole including Iowa, Michigan, and Georgia. The majority of the children are teenagers, with one child younger than 6, and not a single baby.
Original Article:Drop off your children no matter the age
Cheaper Ingredients Found in Hot Dog Buns
With tough economic times it’s not surprising that companies are looking for ways to increase profits on their products. One North Carolina man opened a bag of hot dog buns only to find mouse parts baked inside. These are some of my favorite quotes:
"that’s our little friend right there. And that clearly is a mouse."
"I see the little ears. Clearly that’s a tail. I don’t know what that is, part of his leg or something, but that mouse is baked in there."
"that’s certainly noticeable. I mean, somebody should have seen that. It got put into a bag."
Then when the guy called “Arnold Bread” they told him not to call the Concord store where he bought them.
"she told me, ‘ah no, you don’t need to call BJ’s, just send it back to us.’"
Article from: Cheaper Bread Ingredients
Madonna’s Rules to Live By
Apparently Madonna and her husband Guy had some agreed upon rules that they wrote on their wall of their apartment in New York. It seems like they really only benefited Madonna herself and not to mention since they are getting divorced it apparently didn’t work either.
- Guy must work to enrich his wife’s emotional and spiritual well-being.
- Guy must set aside time to read Kabbalah texts with his wife
- Both must devote time to "sexual expressiveness"
- Both must not "use sex as a stick to beat one another"
- Guy must resolve conflicts "in a constructive way"
- Instead of yelling at Madonna, Guy should say, "I understand that my actions have upset you, please work with me to resolve this."
Download the Most Famous Halloween Song Ever - The Monster Mash
This song gets played on the radio at this time of year and on a lot on Halloween day itself. This is a must have if you have a party tonight
Bobby "Boris" Pickett - Goofy Greats - Monster Mash
Get the “Psych” Theme Song for Free
The theme song for the USA show “Psych” is about 1 minute 11 seconds in length. It’s done by an indie band called the “Friendly Indians” and they are totally awesome (and now that I think of it, the theme song would make an excellent ringtone as well).
The band’s website: http://www.friendlyindians.com/
Link for the free “Psych” theme song download: I_Know_You_Know.mp3
Also if you’ve never seen the show “Psych” you must…. I originally only watched half of the first season, but I’ve recently caught up with it and it’s very well written and funny.
The Writer’s Bible (Writer’s Market)
A few weeks ago a couple of friends asked me if there was a book that helped writers find jobs, and just pretty much learn about the writing industry as whole. The first words out of my mouth was “The Writer’s Bible”, that of course is what everyone in the industry calls it, but of course she didn’t find “The Writer’s Bible” in the bookstore and the staff wasn’t help either. The book or more correctly series of books is known to the common man as “Writer’s Market” and it comes out yearly… these are the 2009 editions. Also I highly recommend buying through Amazon.com because bookstores will charge the suggested price or higher, buying through Amazon.com will normally save quite a bit on these books.
From Amazon.com
Product Description
For 88 years, Writer’s Market has given fiction and nonfiction writers the information they need to sell their work–from completely up-to-date listings to exclusive interviews with successful writers. The 2009 edition provides all this and more with over 3,500 listings for book publishers, magazines and literary agents, in addition to a completely updated freelance rate chart. In addition to the thousands of market listings, writers will find up-to-date information on becoming a successful freelancer covering everything from writing query letters to launching a freelance business, and more.
Of course if you’re looking for a book that’s slightly more specific to what you’re doing, “Writer’s Market” takes care of that too.
Learning French from Watching Gilmore Girls
It’s not something I mention often, but I love the “Gilmore Girls”, such a huge fan I can’t even describe it. Currently I’m learning French because I want to be fluent in it, but learning any language can be hard. So I’ve found a much easier way that requires just as much work (because let’s face it there’s no way to cheat at this), and it basically requires buying some DVD’s of TV shows that you like… in my case “Gilmore Girls”. One nice thing is that most DVD’s here in the US have subtitles for English, French, and Spanish. So I just set the subtitles to what I want and start watching. Granted it doesn’t sound like much, but you have to take into account that learning a language takes time and getting to watch TV and learn makes the process slightly more fun. Also if you wanted DVD’s that are dubbed in another language (my case French) I just simply go to Amazon.fr (Amazon site for France) and just simply order the dubbed DVD’s I want. Also the shipping isn’t as bad as you’d think (and for the case of Gilmore Girls the French version includes English, French, and Italian language tracks); plus it makes the process more fun if you enjoy your learning materials.
Currently Listening To:
David Bowie - Hunky Dory - Life On Mars?
My Guilty Pleasure and her name is Faye
Occasionally I will talk about my favorite webcomic “QuestionableContent.com”, and the fact that it bears an uncanny relevance to anyone’s life, that happens to be a hipster. Apple Fanboys, geeks, nerds, and anyone who likes coffee (most of the strips take place in the coffee shop cleverly named “Coffee of Doom”) will enjoy the strip. Plus after catching up from the first strip to the most current (1264 strips as I’m writing this) you’ll want to open a trendy independent coffee shop yourself, cause I sure did after catching up. For the people thinking why would I read a comic that’s only online and one that they think isn’t good enough because it’s not featured in a major newspaper. Well my answer to you is that there happens to be a lot you can’t say in a newspaper since a small minority of the population gets offended easily by things like sex, strong language, or breathing. Because online comics aren’t faced with these restrictions they tend to emulate real life more realistically. Plus the first comics aren’t that well drawn (but still better than I could do) and you get to see how the drawing involves from a cut and paste method (which the author said he did originally), to a very developed method that he draws on one of those pads you can write on (name eludes me at the moment) and hook up to Photoshop to draw with.
http://www.QuestionableContent.com
Currently Listening To:
David Bowie - Hunky Dory - Life On Mars?
Christmas Songs… Remixed!
Typically the only thing that bothers me much other than the previous post (Christmas Already?) is popular artists of the day coming out with a Christmas album. 99% of the time the only people who enjoy this “Remixed” versions of the classics, in which sometimes they even bastardize the lyrics, are the diehard fans who buy any crap the artist would come out with anyway (American Idol branded dog poop anyone?) . Okay, I guess I’m guilty of buying a few of these albums, but the Christmas albums I own from the artists I like are different; and the fact that I’m a diehard fan of these artists is just a coincidence… okay maybe not.
Currently Listening To:
SHeDAISY - Brand New Year - Deck the Halls
P.S. SHeDAISY actually has an awesome version of the “Deck the Halls” in all seriousness.
Christmas Already?
About 7 years ago or so was when I first noticed that Christmas was literally coming early…. Back in my day stores wouldn’t dare putting up decorations and stuff you buy for Christmas any earlier then the day after Christmas (Black Friday). Then 7 years retailers started creeping up on the other holidays by putting Christmas stuff out before Thanksgiving was even over. Today Christmas decorations and stuff appear weeks before Halloween (Oct 31, for people not familiar with holiday), and it just seems sad. I know that businesses want to make as much money as they can during the holidays but it’s just a sad sign when they do at the sacrifice of the other ones. Granted I don’t expect businesses to care about Thanksgiving because they don’t really make any money of that; but Halloween is the second largest holiday in the US (money wise that is). The only way this slaughtering of the holidays will stop is if people stop buying stuff when they put it out too early (October is way too early to prepare for Christmas, don’t you think?). Of course I don’t expect it to, because people like distractions to help them forget of their problems; and with this economy problem being worldwide, I highly doubt “Christmas Creep” will be isolated much longer. So next year after Valentines I’m expecting to see the wrapping paper and all the Christmas decorations coming out again, isn’t it just grand?
Currently Listening To:
SHeDAISY - Brand New Year - Deck the Halls
Sick with Sausage
I had this wonderful plan about writing 24 posts for the anniversary of my blogging career 4 years ago. Then I got sick with food poisoning which prevented me from launching the new site at midnight, but it’s up now, so that’s all that really matters. Also the idea of a one post an hour is also a faded one, but I’m still going to hit my goal of 24 posts by midnight. I’ve also had candy for breakfast, which I wish this holiday was the only time that I’ve ever done this. Plus for my marathon of posting I won’t be drinking any coffee, and at some point tonight I’m expecting my car to egged… don’t ask why I’m anticipating this.
Currently Listening To:
Bowling for Soup - A Hangover You Don’t Deserve - 1985
How to Free Advertising for your Business
Ever since the ability to blog has presented itself, journalists have argued whether or not “Bloggers” or whatever name happens to be popular at the moment, are in fact real journalists. Like for example a lot of publications that do technology related news don’t allow their journalists to own stock in technology companies; since their opinions on a product can actually affect the market (If for example they could buy technology stock it could literally be the best and easiest way to do market manipulation ever). Although at the moment I’m digressing since I have some reporter friends that work for actual brick and mortar newspapers that don’t really feel that people read and enjoy what they like. They’ve told me on many occasions they wish they could get the satisfaction of knowing how many people actually read their stuff… like in the case of Flywire.Org (because of statistic programs I know what articles people seem to like and what seems to bore them to death). But the gripe I hear most from my reporter friends is that they sometimes have a hard time writing articles especially since a lot of papers have been cutting the reporting staff in the past few years. So reporters that before only had to write a few good articles a week, are now having to write and being told to write for quantity, not quality. I know this one guy who’s got a couple of articles in the paper every single day. Since the increase of the expected number of articles and I even heard this before this happened to; was that they run out of ideas. One recommendation I use to give companies I consulted with, was that if they have a new product and especially if it’s just cool, but most importantly if the company is local to that paper. A lot of the time reporters will be ecstatic about writing something up about it, because they need ideas. With the shortage of reporters can only be seen as a good thing for big and small companies, because it amounts to taking a little bit of time to give a reporter a scoop and Walla you’ve got free advertising.
Currently Listening To:
The Bangles - Bangles: Greatest Hits - Walk Like an Egyptian
Out of Touch?
Maybe it’s just that I’m getting older, but I noticed the other day at the supermarket (which screwed up my deli order by the way) that a few of those “celebrity” magazines had celebs on the cover that I had never heard about before. I had to actually look up who in the hell the “Jonas Brothers” were and that’s when I ran across this whole virginity pledge, which if I remember correctly Britney Spears back in the day had this whole “I’m a virgin” thing and we all know how well that worked out for her. I think the most confusing thing I saw was this show called “The Hills”… apparently it’s suppose to be a fake reality show or whatever the crap they’re pitching for it. What angered me is that this show “The Hills” is on MTV, it’s not even on a real network; they way they show off this Lauren Conrad you’d think she was on “The CW” on that “One Tree Hill Show” (which since we’re talking about “The CW” I’m a huge fan of “Gossip Girl”). Also for the fans of “The Hills” MTV hasn’t been a real network since they stopped showing music videos (although most likely if you didn’t know MTV use to show music videos almost all day long you’re too young for your opinion to matter for real anyway). So if you’ve got a reality show (fake or not) on MTV or VH1 you’re not a real celebrity, you’re just one step below those people on Survivor, and two steps below the dog crap I just stepped in. I want my real television back with made up shows that help me forget my real problems, because if I wanted a taste of reality I’d go and work longer hours at the office.
Currently Listening To:
Sarah McLachlan - Closer: The Best Of Sarah McLachlan - U Want Me 2
