Via Ciara, Awful Library Books is a site similar to Judge A Book by its Cover but is more old timey.




Other books featured on the site include "Looking Forward to Being Attacked," "How to Prepare for Death" and "What to do When The Russians Come"

Hey everyone. I'm catching up from being away to Colorado for the Thanksgiving weekend, so I'm still catching up with all my internetting. While this may be an old story to you already, I found out that an Allen Park, MI couple got married while in line at Best Buy on the day after Thanksgiving

Article with video:
http://blog.blackfriday.com/2009/11/couple-gets-married-in-black-friday-line.html

It's been a productive day here at work. I helped prevent a check scam. We had someone email with one name (Katie) and then apply with another name (Katy) saying she could pay 6 months up front and wanted to move in in December.

Well then she comes in by surprise and says she has everything with her, she's ready to move in. I tell her that she needs to apply first and that she can't put that much money down ahead of time. She gives us $135 as a cashier's check which we deposit at the bank. She also tells a sad story about a failed singing career from the first email she sents.

When she applied, I told her that, if she were denied, she would get $100 of her deposit back within 30 days by check.

The next day (today) she came in saying she needed to cancel her application and that she wanted her $100 refunded on the spot. We explained that that wasn't possible and that she had signed the agreement, but she kicked up a bigger and bigger fuss and kept repeating that "most places write out a check".

So basically, it would seem that she probably tries to put down as much money as possible, tries to cancel and get a check in her name, and then puts a stop payment on the money order and tries to get that money back, doubling her money.

[actual first name changed]

The beauty of wikipedia is that somewhere out there, there's someone obsessed enough with something to catalog it for the rest of the world. Take for example, this list of Crayola crayon colors. It has all 133 standard crayons and specialty colors also (including the scented crayons that include lumber scent) as well as a sample of what the color is.

As shown on digg, wikipedia even has a list of lists that contain lists.

[via Bridget]

[more]

Check it out: this guy made up his resume in the style of a Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition character sheet. My concern, however, is clearly he is cheating given that max for any stat for a human is 18 and here this guy is with a 20 charisma, 22 dexterity and 23 intelligence? Plus, if he really were an orc, he would have a -2 racial modifier to Charisma.

What I find most interesting, however, is that he assigned himself a wisdom score of 8. Average Wisdom (statistically) is 10 or 11, so he's basically saying that he has below average Wisdom.

Better home that your designer job doesn't require saving throws, Sean, or you might not make your check.

Ha, nice choice as Caffeine as your Deity though.

[click for big]


[source]

Via Aaron on Google Reader (who I'm not even sure is an Aaron I know), we have this photographer's crazy story about coming face to face with a leopard seal

Watch it on Infomania Thursdays on Current. Here is an example. You can also download the full show as a podcast.

[via Karen] [article]

Via Ryan North, a guy just had robbery charges dropped because he posted a facebook status update from his home at the time meaning he couldn't have been at the site at the time. The times reported that his status update was, "Where's my pancakes," though given his page screen captured at right by the NYTimes, I'm guessing it was in all caps.

From the NYTimes Full Article:

His defense lawyer, Robert Reuland, told a Brooklyn assistant district attorney, Lindsay Gerdes, about the Facebook entry, which was made at the time of the robbery. The district attorney subpoenaed Facebook to verify that the status update had actually been typed from a computer located at 71 West 118th Street in Harlem, as Mr. Bradford said. When that was confirmed, the charges were dropped.

Bonus quote:

As for those pancakes: “I used to really like them,” Mr. Bradford said. “Now I love ‘em.”

Note to self: If I ever want to commit a crime, have someone post a status update from my home computer.

Update: According to the Gothamist, the direct quote of the unclassy facebook status update is actually "ON THE PHONE WITH THIS FAT CHICK......WHERER MY IHOP".
http://gothamist.com/2009/11/11/facebook_status_update_keeps_teen_o.php

Yes, Finn, you should look concerned. Because Ken (played by Patrick Gallagher) was just on my episode of Battlestar Galactica on Zarek's side and he tried to strangle Apollo.



Related Posts:
John Hodgeman & Stands with a Fist on BSG
Zac Efron on Firefly

Phil recently shared an awesomely designed and thorough break down of the old Choose Your Own Adventure Books. I skimmed through most of it in tl;dr fashion, but I read enough to learn that one choose your own adventure book had an ending that was unreachable by reading the book's decision tree.



Pretty neat. Anyhow, go check out the cool charts.
http://samizdat.cc/cyoa/

[source]

Let me tell you about a great game. That game is Battlestar Galactica by Fantasy Flight Games. I got it because the internet is abuzz about it, because I like the show, and because I opened up my amazon account one day to find $21 in it.

Before I even tell you about how the game works, perhaps the best review of it is the fact that Karen liked the game. Karen is more prone to like games that are rules light, have cute themeing, and don't take too long to play.

Battlestar Galactica is not cute, has a decent sized rule book, and took hours to play. But still, she enjoyed it, as did players that have never seen the show. In fact, it's one of the only games I can think of that is based on a show, movie, or book that
1) is good
2) doesn't require that you like the show to appreciate it

So here's how it works. Everyone is a on a fleet with the Battlestar Galactica as its flagship. Everyone picks out their character (picking from different political leaders, military leaders, pilots, and support staff). The humans, while dealing with other crises, have to fend off robots known as Cylons that appear in ships, send boarding parties, and cause havoc. The humans are trying to reach earth by making a certain number of jumps through space before they run out of resources.

Now where BSG gets interesting is that at the start of the game, everyone gets a loyalty card and an unknown number of players find out that they are actually secret cylons. So while the humans are trying to make sure Galactica makes it through things ok, the Cylons win by sabotaging the fleet. And on top of this, there's a second phase where it's possible for a human to find out that he was a cylon all along.

The main mechanic for sabotage in BSG is in skill checks. Every turn, a crisis comes up like a potential water shortage, riots in the fleet, or a call to impeach the president [characters can become admiral or president and receive special powers along with their title]. Each crisis has a target number that the humans have to reach by playing skill cards. Everyone plays cards face down. First, you take two random skill cards and put them out face down, then players go around the table and secretly add cards to the pot. Cylons are out there adding cards that work against the humans to make their checks. And so it's up to the humans, based on the type of skill cards played, to try and figure out the aftermath of the cards and figure out who might be the cylons messing things up for everyone. So if there are a lot of red piloting cards in there, it could be because they were among the random cards, it could be from one of the pilots that is a cylon, or it could be someone trying to frame the pilots.

Figuring out who is and who isn't a cylon is the most fun part of the game, and it's fun to play a game that's team based where you have figure out who is even on your team to begin with. If I had to compare it to other games, it is like a mix of Bang, Clue, and Arkham Horror [but far less rule intensive than Arkham horror].

So that's Battlestar Galactica. You can read/watch more about the game over on Drakes Flames or Board Game Geek. And there's always FFG's somewhat-cheesy but informative trailer [direct link to .mov file].

Be watching for future posts about games (board games and otherwise) I like

Via MAKE, there was a bunch of text I didn't read above a really cool chart of what different people called the same Lego pieces. I'm not sure why this is cool, but it is.

See full chart at original article.

A deer at the national zoo jumped into the lions den. People cheered it on. It got eaten. [via fark]

Apparently there's a two year old girl out there that could die if she cries. [via digg]

Relatives of a man were recently shocked when he showed up to attend his own funeral. [also via digg]

If you happen to pick up a copy of Knights of the Dinner Table #154, you fill find a one panel comic by yours truly. That, according to my 2009 tax returns at least, officially makes me a freelance cartoonist.

A recent Left Handed Toon reminded me that I still needed to share this. Apparently, this guy on CSI [a show I don't watch] likes to say a one-liner and then put on his sunglasses right before he theme song [The Who: Won't Get Fooled Again] kicks in. Thankfully, this is the internet and someone compiled them all into one video.





Thanks as always, Know Your Meme

One hundred years from now, are books going to have to have footnotes like "1) This dialogue references a popular film of the time in which both characters stood on the prow of a great ship and together declared to be king of the world" ?

Are people going to have to explain why David Sedaris is funny like people have to explain why 16th century literature is funny?

I understand having things like a teen study Bible, but not this. I'm curious if the notes in the margins have a lot of racing metaphors or what?


[via]

http://annarbor.craigslist.org/tlg/1446053301.html