Talk about your deceptive headlines! As a CNN headline, I saw "red hot chili peppers rocked..." and look where it led.

There's some cool pics of a billboard for Ford Mustangs...looks like it's just a concept currently. According to the site:

"Constructed from GE Lexan EXL semi-transparent resin, the billboard accurately blurs the scene behind it regardless of day, weather or season."

Seems like a neat idea, but it's probably pretty expensive.

After the Man Show and Fear Factor, I didn't think I'd ever be saying Joe Rogan's not an idiot. But two things have changed my mind.

For one, he's remarkably intelligent-sounding in this clip, despite the fact that he's rambling a bit and talking about taking psychedelic drugs (Warning! - plenty of profanity here!):


The second mind-changer? He slams Carlos Mencia and gets a bunch of comedians to get the courage to call him the joke-stealer that he is. The video's appearing and disappearing from Youtube, at times stating it was removed for copyright infringement. So if the video below doesn't work, try the Myspace link to the video instead.

This is so cool. It's so rare to see a company doing customer service right, that it had to be posted. Basically, a guy that bought a Nintendo Wii on launch day had some problems with the optical drive vibrating and making excessive noise. I suggest you read the full story, but here's the semi-short version:

So I called the Nintendo customer service telephone number, located right there on their web site. The message telling me I had to wait for a CSR didn't even finish playing before a rep was on the line. I explained my problem and she said she'd get me an RMA right away to get it fixed. She asked for my phone number. I gave it to her. She did a bit of a verbal double-take and said, "Are you here in Washington?"

"I'm in Redmond, as a matter of fact [location of Nintendo of America's campus]," I replied. "Well then, let's not bother with the RMA and the shipping labels and all of that. Just bring it on in to Nintendo," she said.

She assured me she was not kidding. She gave me directions to the Nintendo campus building where the Customer Service Center was located, and five minutes later I was looking at an unassuming door. I took a deep breath and opened the door.

A life-size Mario and a larger-than-life Pikachu greeted us. So did a really nice, cheerful woman behind the sales counter. I related my telephone conversation to her, still certain that I'd been had. "Oh, yeah!" she said. "We do that!"

"It's going to be about 30 minutes, though," she went on. "I'm really sorry." She wasn't Japanese, but clearly Nintendo is a Japanese company. Only a Japanese service center would apologize for taking 30 minutes to repair a piece of electronics when my expectation going in was that I'd be without it for two weeks.

25 minutes later I saw her emerge from the back room out of the corner of my eye, but I was watching the boy playing a particularly suspenseful level of Wario Ware Twist. She waited until she heard the "level complete" sound to get my attention.

In those 25 minutes, they'd transferred all of my Miis, friends, and saved games from the old console to a new one. She logged on to make sure my 500 points transferred to the shopping channel. She sent me out with a $0.00 invoice showing a warranty replacement of my Wii and a reset of the warranty clock, meaning the Wii I took home has 15 months of coverage from today, even though I bought my original one almost 3 months ago.

So this is my Valentine to Nintendo. That was the most awesome customer service experience I ever, ever had.

dave submitted a story about how Sam Adams created a beer glass designed to improve the beer-savoring experience:

Wine lovers have long used crystal stemware to help experience the exquisite nose of a French merlot or a frisky Australian vin ordinaire, and now the Boston brewer thinks beer connoisseurs have achieved a similar level of discernment when it comes to appreciating state-of-the-art advances in lager delivery-systems.

According to the company, the new Samuel Adams Boston Lager Pint Glass is the first glass specifically designed to showcase beer as brewers intended.

Sparing no effort, Boston Beer said it recruited "world-renowned sensory experts" to work on the design of a glass that beginning in March, will be sold in packages of four for $30 at www.samueladams.com.

One feature of the new glass is a neck-and-lip design that "helps sustain the head of the beer, which enhances the release of signature Noble hop aromas found in Samuel Adams Boston Lager," the company said.

It looks like someone took a standard pint glass and pinched it in a couple of places. I wonder if it makes a big difference, and if it would benefit a less malty, hoppy beer.

Fox.com is advertising the 2-hour episode of 24 that's going to be on tonight. But check out the spoiler in the ad!



Not cool, FOX. You expect me to watch the episode after telling me stuff is going to explode? This is what spoiler tags were made for. Stuff blows up so rarely on 24, that this is a big deal.

Allright, last time around I gave up trying to actively combat spam by getting rid of anonymous commenting on this site. But the new spam filter 3.0 is ready to go, so lets give this another shot. Comment away in the comfort of internet anonymity! Of course the comments of members still appear before any anonymous ones (as before), so registering is still encouraged.

I don't have to tell you what a comfort anonymity can be in my profession -- like a warm blanket. - Mission: Impossible

In case there's any bugs with commenting due to the change, let me know.

I wouldn't mind so much that you're running a crappy ad campaign (about the "complaints" about the Beer Ape ads) except that I keep hearing/seeing it constantly on the radio/TV. It's really dumb and annoying, and even if I liked Rolling Rock, these ads could convince me to stop drinking it.

Get rid of your unfunny ads and come up with a campaign that doesn't blow.

It looks like the season picks up again beginning April 8th, so not too far off! Strangely, TV.com seems to indicate the new episodes are a continuation of Season 3.

I wish they would just play the new episodes already, chop suey!



If you haven't seen this show yet, you're really missing out on some awesome television. The cast is great.

The Oscars are coming up, and you haven't seen any of the best picture nominees yet. What do you do? How about finding your local participating AMC theater to get this sweet deal: $30 gets you the 5 Best Picture nominees, and unlimited popcorn and pop. That's 11 hours of movies!