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It is with great sadness that I report that my George Foreman (aka. “grilla”) has finally passed away. It has served me well over these past 5 or so years that I have owned it, doling out the salmon or occasional burgs with quickness and ease. Oh, and the sandwiches. I always would forget to make sandwiches with it, and they were so good, panini pressed style. It worked like a champ, well into it’s golden years, even after it lost bun warmer functionality.

And honestly, now that my once sleek, sexy and stylish Honda Civic, has paid it’s historical dues (oh the stories it could tell…), becoming a dingy, clunky, transmission-challenged husk of a former supermodel in the process, I feel as if I need to commemorate this aging, passing and renewing of technologies. For there is no denying our own technological mortality. Like these gadgets, will will reach a physical end, sooner, or later. The doctor said I have high cholesterol. I looked at him like you look at someone that tells you your shoes suck. I was oddly, insulted. What did he mean high cholesterol? Is he saying I’m old? But there’s no denying the entropy of physiology. And in a strange way, the death of “grilla” is a mini-death to help me prepare for my own. Thanks, little buddy.

Now as I contemplate purchasing a new George Foreman, perhaps the one with built-in burger chef intelligence, and a new ride, something with clairvoyant brakes and noetic suspension, I usher in a new mini-era of immortality, the second coming of me.

I’ve brought up my fascination with non-lethal weapons before. And let me tell you, whether it’s military adventurism, fraternity pranks, or good ol’ domestic abuse, non-lethal weapons can play a big part in your life. With no casualties everyone’s a winner, in a non-lethal utopia by way of a sticky foam rave kind of way, where pain is only an illusion, and therefore, not real, right? In no time we’ll all be mad with laughter, at the mere thought of “war.”

My problem with future weapons technologists however, is that they just aren’t thinking outside the box enough. Nuclear missiles? Come on. That’s so 1980s. We need to have fun with this. We need a Willy Wonka of future weapons. Previously I mentioned my idea for the Ibiza Techno-BubbleBox, capable of turning any street corner disturbance into a full-on Ibiza style bubble rave. To build upon this I’m currently developing several alternatives such as the the spaghetti web, slushy riot crowd-control spray, milk non-duds, meatball catapult , and a very simple replacement ammunition for all machine fired projectiles, part of the forthcoming Nerf-War package. There’s one more technology in the early stages of development known as “pizza delivery.” It’s very complicated but the idea is that wherever there are dangerous crowds, enemy lines, etc., precise geographic coordinates are logged through fancy GPS technology, and then the “interwebs” contact food-service giant Halliburton and orders a large number and variety of pizzas to said target location. When the pizzas arrive the crowd loses it’s will to fight and begins to dissipate amidst the confusion of pepperoni and who ordered which pizza. It’s the perfect confusion.

For products already on the market see slip n’ slide, jumpy things, and of course the old standby: opera. Nothing immobilizes like bad music.

Since war doesn’t want to go away, shouldn’t we just make it fun and more safe?

So planning for a European jaunt this summer I did a little research and found some decent discount airfare sites. It had been a while since I really searched for some new ones. While there are a few discount international deals, there’s nothing like RyanAir or EasyJet in Europe. Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia suck, especially for international travel. They are dead to me, forever. I’ve long been suspicious of them and for good reason: they do not find the cheapest flights!

Kayak.com seems to offer the best across the board search for international flights, from just about every source imaginable. Vayama.com, the coolest web 2.0 airfare search around, impressed me with the cheapest flight I could find, and a snazzy-ass website, but then failed the check out process at the very end with an obscure javascript error. It’s in Beta, and they obviously mean it. If they ever get things working, they’ll have no problem taking over the market. Farecast.com is certainly slick too, and promises to tell you if you should buy now or wait…if your flight is in their database. Strike 2 for web 2.0. Ultimately I booked though Fareline.com who also checked out cheapest via Kayak.com. I’m not sure how these would stack up against airbrokers.com and airtreks.com for multi-leg round the world type deals. I used airbrokers.com in 2001 and circumnavigated the globe in 6 flights for $1200. Same that I paid for a round trip to Europe this August.

Within Europe, I found flycheapo.com to be the most comprehensive list of discount flights.

Anything I’ve missed?

I really want to make a good joke about Deepwater or Blackwater, but it’s just eluding me. Let’s see…Deepwater…What do you get with loads of “free” taxpayer money, no oversight, and several colossal bureaucracies? Nah, just depresses me.

But you heard about Deepwater, right? Part of the program was to lengthen already existing Coast Guard boats to the tune of 10 million per boat. Yes, I said lengthen. Apparently, you can lengthen boats, just like you would, oh, trick out an El Camino. Of course, it didn’t work, and the government is blaming the contractor, and taking the project over, but something tells me only the government could get itself in such a stupid situation in the first place.

Now if we can only take some of this genius technology and widen the planet, we’ll have some more room for all the babies in China.

The glorious interwebs have once again delivered instant nostalgia verification and indulgence straight to my computer screen portal. When I was just a lad, a trip to grandma’s house always meant the accompanying treat “Food Sticks,” an odd 5 or so inched, cylindrical shaped candy in a cool brown paper and foil lined wrapper. Think tootsie roll meets powerbar. Turns out this product started off as “Space Food Sticks,” and then sometime in the later 70s shortened to simply “Food Sticks” when the space program lost it’s verve. And I’m not the only one who has since wondered about this product it seems, as it has been reverse engineered and reanimated, albeit in more squarish form and with a BMX biker on the package. Good enough for me, since BMX was about as cool as space anyway.

The following spam was sent out in ’03 by a disgruntled forum member of darkprofits.com to exact a little revenge. Good stuff.

Welcome to the site www.darkprofits.com, it’s us again, now we extended our offerings, here is a list:

1. Heroin, in liquid and crystal form.
2. Rocket fuel and Tomohawk rockets (serious enquiries only).
3. Other rockets (Air-to-Air), orders in batches of 10.
4. New shipment of cocaine has arrived, buy 9 grams and get 10th for free.
5. We also offer gay-slaves for sale, we offer only such service on the NET, you can choose the one you like, then get straight to business.
6. Fake currencies, such as Euros and US dollars, prices would match competition.
7. Also, as always, we offer widest range of child pornography and exclusive lolita galleries, to keep out clients busy.

Everyone is welcome, be it in States or any other place worldwide.

ATTENTION. Clearance offer. Buy 30 grams of heroin, get 5 free. Prepay your batch of rockets (air-to-air) and recieve a portable rocket-lacuncher for free.

www.darkprofits.com

Why you should check your email frequently.

“A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows.”

I don’t know if the university was to blame, but the first email came out 2 hrs after the first shooting. Of course, I don’t think they knew they had a rampage at that point.

I have been notified of many things via email: births, deaths, all sorts of variants of good and bad news, but never that I was being pursued by a gunman. How many students do you think thought it was spam? Can you image some of the SMS messages that were sent back and forth between them?

Perhaps registering students cell phone numbers to send out SMS messages in case of emergencies would be slightly more direct in the event of emergencies.

Update: boing boing talks about the SMS notification possibility here, obviously following my lead. Although it may not accomplish much I do think it’s a step in the right direction, and not at all difficult to implement. The world needs more real time!

The lingering question I have is how could Cho, a lousy playwright and stalker, who had done time in a mental institution, have bought a gun so easily? You would think ‘mental institution’ might flag a background check?!?

The ethanol issue is a wonderful example of delusional and self-serving government, pipe dreaming about energy independence.

Economists argue that making ethanol from corn wouldn’t make any sense without the government’s help. The mix of federal and state subsidies to corn ethanol amounted to a conservative estimate of $5 billion to $7 billion in 2006, says Koplow of Earth Track. A considerable chunk of that money comes from the 51¢ tax refund for each gallon of ethanol refiners blend with gasoline to make fuels that can power flexible-fuel cars.

At the same time, the government imposes a 54¢-per-gallon tariff on ethanol from Brazil, which is a cheaper and more energy-efficient product made from sugar cane. Some economists say American politicians are subordinating smart energy policy for political support in key states like Iowa.

I’m all for energy alternatives. If ethanol is worth it’s weight in corn, let it speak for itself. Let it compete with other technologies in a free market with no subsidies and the most efficient will prevail.

Researching a potential Chernobyl disaster vacation I came across more pictures this time, along with very haunting graffiti that has gone up, apparently for the 20th anniversary last April, silhouettes of children playing and other spooky but insanely poignant images. There are pictures of the abandoned town of Pripyat, and the graffiti, both on the BBC site, and the 26-04-1986.com site. There’s a lot of interesting stuff on flickr, and don’t miss Phil Coomes photos.

The first reactor exploded (became an unstable mass of white hot nuclear goo) at 0123 Saturday, April 26, 1986. According to the BBC:

Most people spent the Saturday outside, enjoying the unusually warm spring weather. Sixteen weddings took place.

The town was only evacuated 36 hours after the accident, while the evacuation of nearby villages took several more days.

Almost sounds like FEMA managed the disaster…

Jack Black’s anti-piracy “PSA.”