Month: May 2006

Essential Vocabulary Additions

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Dictionary

Anne Marie forwarded these to me. Some of them are pretty funny (and accurate)…

BLAMESTORMING : Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER : A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS : The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

ADMINISPHERE : The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

SALMON DAY : The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE : The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

XEROX SUBSIDY : Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.

CUBE FARM : An office filled with cubicles

PRAIRIE DOGGING : When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.

MOUSE POTATO : The on-line, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato.

SITCOMs : Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies get into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

STRESS PUPPY : A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

SWIPEOUT : An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

IRRITAINMENT : Entertainment and media spectacles that are Annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben wedding (or not) was a prime example – Michael Jackson, another…

404 : Someone who’s clueless. >From the World Wide Web error Message “404 Not Found,” meaning that the requested site could not be located.

GENERICA : Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.

OHNOSECOND : That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an e-mail by mistake)

WOOFS : Well-Off Older Folks.

CROP DUSTING : Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube Farm

“Bodygroom makes your d!©k look bigger”

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Philips Bodygroom

Philips Norelco has launched a new product called the Bodygroom, and they’ve built a hilarious website to introduce it. It’s brilliant! I highly recommend checking it out. Make sure to go through all the sections after the intro plays… they are great!

FYI.. it may be better to wait until you get home to look at this, it may not be totally appropriate for your office ;)

Link: Philips Bodygroom

Found via Mike Davidson

Spiderman and His Amazing Friends

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Firestar, Spiderman, IceMan

As a kid I loved watching Spiderman and His Amazing Friends. It was one of my favorite shows. I totally had a crush on Firestar, I think you can see why.

Last night I was watching TV, late, and the show came on. I realized for the first time just how bad the show really was. It’s so bad, it’s cool… if that makes sense. But, I still have a crush on Firestar… She’s totally hot (pun intended).

I found a QuickTime of the show’s first season opening sequence. Click the link below to check it out. It’s small, but it’s still cool to see. Both the movie and the image above were found on spider-friends.com.

Links: Opening Sequence | spider-friends.com

Translucent Stickies

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Translucent Stickies

I’ve always been a big fan of Apples ‘Stickies’ application. It’s been around forever. I think they were first introduced in System 7, but I’m not sure about that. In OS X 10.4, Tiger, Apple gave us a Widget version of Stickies, but I just don’t like those as much. They seem a little buggy.

Anyway, I never realized you can make your Stickies translucent. Just hit Command-Option-T, and the active note will become translucent. Hit the key combination again to return the note to full opacity.

Found via Apple’s Tip of the Week

TiKi Bar TV

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TiKi Bar TV

It’s been in my Vlogroll for ages, but after a quick search of the archives, I realized I’ve never mentioned TiKi Bar TV. It’s one of my all-time favorite vlogs / video podcasts.

TiKi Bar TV stars Dr. TiKi, Johnny Johnny, and LaLa… ooooo, LaLa. Basically, they’re little skits that take place in the TiKi Bar… generally revolving around drinking. They also generally include a recipe for some obscure drink, either made up or real, I’m not sure which. They are hilarious!

Unfortunately, they don’t publish very often, only about once every month or two. I think partially because they put a lot of production value in to them. But, there are currently 15 episodes for your viewing pleasure. I recommend watching them all.

Link: TiKi Bar TV

Use your Mac as an Alarm Clock

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Automator

There is a great little tutorial over at Macworld today on how to use your Mac as a musical alarm clock, using just the tools that are installed with OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

It’s very simple to do… it involves Automator, iTunes, and the Energy Saver Preference Pane. The Energy Saver Pref Pane boots your Mac at a specified time, and Automator takes care of the rest. Here’s a tip for you… if your Mac requires a password to boot up, this tutorial won’t work.

Link: Turn your Mac into a musical alarm clock

Free iTunes Single from The Raconteurs

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iTunes Single of the Week

This weeks FREE single from the iTunes Music Store is from The Raconteurs. It’s an acoustic version of a song called Steady, As She Goes. The Raconteurs are made up of Jack White, of The White Stripes, Songwriter Brendan Benson, and two members of The Greenhornes, Jack Lawrence & Patrick Keeler.

The song is awesome! I highly recommend grabbing it while it’s free. The standard (electric) version is pretty hot too, but that one will cost you $0.99.

iTunes Links: Acoustic (Free) | Standard ($.99)

UPDATE: odl reader, Jeff, was kind enough to point me to the video for this song, in QuickTime (Link). It was directed by Jim Jarmusch. Thanks Jeff!

Great New Apple Ads

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New Apple Ads

There were rumors flying around earlier today about some new Apple ads spotted in the wild. I looked on the Apple site before I left for dinner and didn’t see anything. When I got back I had an email from ODL Reader, Maximilian. He let me know that Apple has posted them to the site. Thanks Maximilian!

The ads star John Hodgman and Justin Long, as a PC and a Mac that have some funny little conversations. They’re really good. I’m not sure which one I like best.

Link: New Apple Ads