Why, Blog, Why?

Imagine all the kick butt cardboard rocketships we could have built when we were kids if we had Mr. McGroovy's cardboard fasteners in our toolbox!

I see one ginormous, pink cardboard castle in my daughters' future.

Cardboard castle built using Mr. McGroovy's Box Rivets

And check out this image of a rocketship built using the fasteners.

Cardboard rocketship built with Mr. McGroovy's cardboard fasteners

They have plans for all sorts of other things too! I soooooo NEED these!

(Credit where credit is due: Found via Cool Tool blog)

Are you on Last.fm yet? If not, sign up and send me a friend request (chrisbloom7). They have a great selection of music on there from all genres.

What, you've never heard of it?

Well, if you don't know about it yet, it's basically a service that allows you to stream music from artists that are like artists that you like. (That's the second time I wrote that line and I swear there's a joke to be had about it...) They have a player that you download and install, which you can then use to search for music tagged a certain way or similar to another artist. For instance, I've been tuning in to the "Similar to Silent Drive" stream and finding some really great stuff. (Check out the Top 10 listing on the sidebar of my blog.) Every now and then you get a track from that particular artist too.

Some of the music they host is available as a free download or for purchase. Oh, and they track what you like and don't like (via the Love/Hate buttons and depending on what music you skip over) to serve you better selected tracks. And as if that wasn't enough for you, Mr. Self Righteous Bastard, they also have this thing called a "scrobbler", which has nothing to do with fellatio despite what you may think, but instead tracks all of the music that you listen to in other media players (WMP, Winamp, iTunes, even your iPod) and adds it to your Last.fm stats. But wait, there's more - all those stats get used to pair you up with virtual neighbors, members with similar interests, and let you listen in on what they are digging.

That's all under the free account. There is a premium subscription level that allows you to play certain bands on demand, among other equally lascivious perks.

So, if you're over that whole righteous bastard thing, go sign up!

I was playing around with Windows Live Local some more, this time plotting out a potential course (or alternate (warmer) course) for when our cruising dream is realized. I was following the basic route that Tania Aebi took on her maiden voyage, except returning via Cape Town at the southern tip of Africa rather than going up the Red and Mediteranian seas. The push-pins are great for this, although I already hate that you are limited to 10 :(

Here’s a nice little AJAX-based application that lets you instant message via your AOL, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber and GTalk accounts — all in one browser window and all over HTTP (so it gets around corporate firewalls that block normal IM programs). It responded very quickly in the short time that I was using it.

meebo.com