funny

If you're in the mooood for coffee

As the years after my first sip of coffee have gone by, I've transitioned slowly into a full-blown coffee addict. My rushed morning cravings for the stuff on busy work days, however, haven't yet dulled the enjoyment that I get from sipping a slow cup on my days off--nothing beats a lazy late brunch with a full pot straight from the French press.

If I cook brunch for a group, then setting out coffee with a sugar bowl and creamer pitcher is a necessity, but even if I eat alone, leaving the sugar and milk separate until I'… Read more

Make some noise

Think your clackety keyboard is loud enough? Think again! Funny Typing's fairly simple purpose is to make some noise each time you press a key. It's not bad looking, with a straightforward interface and a nice toolbar with large icons. It comes with several themes and the ability to easily download new ones from inside the program.

All the features are easy to find, and seem easy to understand, even without a Help file. You can use the predefined themes, alter them, or create your own. Response time between key press and sound was frequently lagging, and pressing … Read more

Video: Not the best way to fix your plasma HDTV

I'm lucky. The Olevia TV I bought two years ago is working just as fine as it was the day I brought it home. But not everybody's that lucky. I have a few friends whose LCD or plasma TVs have presented varying problems. That seems to be what's happened to the gentleman in this video, and he's taken to a unique method to fix his plasma's problems: he uses a baseball bat.

I winced the entire time I watched this for the first time. I think you will, too.

Squishy driving

JellyCar is an inventive and whimsical free game in which you drive a bouncy car through a series of 2-D puzzles on 15 short levels. What makes JellyCar unusual (besides its goofy soundtrack) is the game's "soft-body physics," which make your car and everything in the game world extremely squishy and reactive. The fairly simple controls make great use of the touchscreen--you can drive left and right, temporarily "inflate" the size of your car, tilt your device left and right to rotate the car, and pinch and zoom to change your view of a level. … Read more

Five ways John McCain can become the Wizard of the Web

My heart, or at least some recondite part of me, went out to John McCain this weekend when I read his plaintive words: "I'm an illiterate who has to rely on his wife for any assistance he can get."

He was, I understand, referring to websurfing rather autocue-reading.

And I can honestly say that I feel his pain.

Thankfully, he is, on this page, in the hands of the experienced.

In the early part of this century, I was asked to help a company called Senior Surfers. Senior Surfers' goal was to find easy ways to take … Read more

StumbleUpon's Stumble Video adds new content partners

Media "discovery" site StumbleUpon announced Tuesday that its video service, Stumble Video, has a host of new content available: content sites College Humor, Funny or Die, and VBS.tv, as well as video-hosting sites Vimeo, DailyMotion, and Veoh.

Stumble Video, which uses past preferences to pick out videos that a member might like--in other words, a nifty procrastination tool--already amasses content from big sites like YouTube, MySpaceTV, and Metacafe.

StumbleUpon was acquired by eBay last year, about six months after it debuted the Stumble Video feature. There's also a specialized version of Stumble Video for Nintendo's … Read more

Norton Fighter returns

Back in October, I wrote about the Norton Fighter, a Kamen Rider-inspired mascot for Symantec in Japan to help the company sell Norton 360 to the denizens of the Floating Kingdom. Did I say sell? I meant, "fight honorably and do great battle to protect from evil." Or something.

Anyway, whoever's marketing Norton 360 sure knows its audience. The company has now put out a series of long commercials, filmed on grainy stock and in the Technicolor style of the '70s, showing the Fighter doing his best to not only defeat the evil Botlas, but also to … Read more

Off-topic: Thank goodness we have YouTube!

Where else would we find all those funny videos featuring people getting hit in the crotch? And that is, in fact, the source of a fair amount of YouTube's traffic, according to WebProNews. I don't know about you, but I don't feel like my day is complete without watching a cat fall off a TV, seeing people dancing on treadmills, and such.

YouTube is the new central repository for crotch-smashing, according to the article:… Read more

Report: Bill Murray to appear on Funny or Die

Funny or Die, the video Web site started by comedian Will Ferrell and writers Adam McKay and Chris Henchy, is continuing to score some big-name celebrities, including actor Bill Murray. The New York Times briefly quoted McKay, a former writer for Saturday Night Live and the director of Talladega Nights, as saying that Murray is going to make a video for the site.

Funny or Die has already looped in such familiar faces as Brooke Shields and Oscar De La Hoya. And thanks to the huge success of The Landlord--a short skit featuring McKay's 2-year-old daughter Pearl as … Read more