2005 Year-End Google Zeitgeist

Considering all that has occurred in 2005, we thought it would be interesting to study just a few of the significant events, and names that make this a memorable year. (We’ll leave it to the historians to determine which ones are lasting and which ephemeral.) We hope you enjoy this selective view of our collective year.

Apocalypto teaser has hidden image

The teaser trailer for Mel Gibson's Apocalypto was released last week. At about 1:46 into it, this single frame appears.

Judge Rejects Teaching Intelligent Design

"That was a real drag," said Michael J. Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University who was the star witness for the intelligent design side.

A "real drag?" The star witness gives quotes like that?

Peter's Evil Overlord List
or "The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord"

Some of my favorites include

• My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
  
• If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.
  
• My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.
  
• I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.

SPJ criticizes radio station’s sale of naming rights

The Society of Professional Journalists urges Clear Channel radio group to stop allowing its stations to sell naming rights to their newsrooms. WIBA, a Clear Channel radio station in Madison, Wis., sold the naming rights for its newsroom to a local bank.

The top 10 weirdest USB drives ever

USB drives comes in thousands of designs and colors, but these 10 are extraordinary weird. Or what do you think? Go ahead, check them out. They are weird! Promise. Hehe.

OCC trustees oust student paper adviser

Bosley rebutted the two reasons she was given for not being renewed as newspaper adviser — that the paper contains too many errors and that student staff, because they use Macintosh computers, are not being prepared for the real world.

Christmas House Video

This amazing animated Christmas display, synchronized to a rousing rendition of 'Wizards in Winter' by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, was constructed in 2004 by Carson Williams of Mason, Ohio using programmable light controllers and software made by Light-O-Rama of Garfield, New Jersey. The music was broadcast on FM radio so viewers could listen to it as they drove by the house in their cars.

What Is On George Bush's iPod?

Ever wondered what the most powerful man in the world listens to in his spare time? In a rare departure from formal media interviews, George Bush has revealed what is on his personal IPod. Andrew Wilson reports on the President's favourite tunes.

This is a streaming Windows Media video.

eBay: 8-Ft LEGO Rebel Attack Cruiser

This one-of-a-kind 8-foot LEGO Rebel Attack Cruiser model was designed by LEGO Master Builder Erik Varszegi for display at Star Wars Celebration III, San Diego Comic-Con, LEGOLAND California and several other national LEGO events to promote the final episode in the Star Wars saga. Megan and I saw it at Comic-Con and were blown away by both the size and the detail. You can see our picture in our Comic-Con photo gallery, but we couldn't back up enough to get the whole thing in the frame. Better pictures are found by following the link above.

It is now being auctioned off with a signed certificate of authenticity from George Lucas and 100 percent of the proceeds will be donated to Habitat for Humanity’s hurricane relief efforts in the southeastern United States to aid families who are rebuilding their lives in the wake of the natural disaster.

There are six days remaining to bid, so make sure you've got at least $31,000. But shipping is free!

TV glitch mars Xbox 360 Kong game

Fans wanting to get the best out of the King Kong video game should avoid the version for Microsoft's new Xbox 360, the game's maker Ubisoft has suggested.
...
"When you play on an Xbox or a PlayStation 2, you start to see that it is beautiful," he said.

Ouch. This is just sad. However, the headline is misleading, as there is no "TV glitch."

The Ubisoft boss said the team who made the game used certain settings on high-definition TV screens. It did not occur to them that there would be a problem with standard televisions, which are what most people use to play console games.

Forbes.com: Sweet Profits

Not so long ago, in candy stores not so far away, anyone could snag a bag of Masterfoods' limited edition Star Wars dark chocolate M&M's. But since their release in collectible packages in April, the ten-week window of the promotional product has long since closed, leaving many craving more. And now some speculators have stepped in, tasting some sweet profits.

This article is slightly out of date now, since dark chocolate M&M's were re-released in late September through early November. What is still relevant, though, is they were impossible to find. I snagged 1-1/2 lb. at M&M's World when we were vacationing in Las Vegas, but once they're gone, it'll be tough (impossible?) to go back to boring old milk chocolate.

Video Journal # 22 - 20 Hours in San Diego

When we were at the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con, I attended the session for Superman Returns, featuring Director Bryan Singer. That session and the events surrounding it are recounted in his video journal on BlueTights.net. It does not reveal most of the footage that was previewed to the audience, and neither does the recently-released teaser trailer. But it's a fun little video nonetheless.

Christmas 2005 Newsletter

A Web Exclusive!! The 2005 edition of the Hargreaves family Christmas newsletter - The Informer - is available online! It is a 532KB PDF file, which translates into a 1-2 minute download for you dial-up users but unnoticable to you broadband users. Whether it loads in your browser window or launches Adobe Acrobat/Reader, don't forget that you can zoom in if it displays too small for your taste. This is a reward for all you blog readers who may or may not get a print version in your Christmas card (as if visiting this site isn't reward enough...)

Informer 2005

Steve Jobs discusses music labels, iPods and Intel Macs

Jobs also warned of the challenge of offering extra features just for the sake of it, saying "We are very careful about what features we add because we can't take them away."

Really? Because over the past few years, you've taken away the included carrying case/belt clip, wired remote, the Settings option on the main menu, FireWire cable, dynamically-updating smart playlists, the headphone connector, power adapter, and the ability to sync with iTunes via FireWire. So are you sure you can't take things away?

Jelly Belly Factory

Megan and I visited the Jelly Belly Candy Co. in Fairfield earlier this month. Because it was a weekend, they were not actually making candies at the time and all the machines were at rest. But we still got to go on a walking factory tour with a knowledgable guide and watch some videos about the Jelly Belly bean-making process. We also saw a number of the Jelly Belly artworks, some of which use as many 5,000 beans. We even saw the 1989 World Series piece that was not missing a single bean after being recovered after the earthquake. Neither photography nor videocameras were allowed, however.

Interesting facts from that tour include:

• The only flavor of Jelly Belly's 50 flavors that is not included in its 49 Flavors bag is Jalapeño.
• Jelly Belly beans that get stuck together or are irregularly-shaped are called Belly Flops
• They also make more than 100 other types of candy, including Candy Corn and Jordan Almonds

After the factory tour, we got to sample Jelly Belly beans from the (free!) Sampling Bar. They had a number of rare flavors available including: Green Tea Ice Cream, Baked Beans, Garlic, Buttered Toast, Pomegranate, Mint Trio, some new JBz flavors and the (ugh!) Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. I recommend having a Strawberry Jam + a Peanut Butter + a Buttered Toast.

But why were there children crying? Hello?! "Like a kid in a candy store" does not refer to unhappiness! You're getting free candy! We bought a few bags of Belly Flops at the visitor store, among other things and also had lunch at the Jelly Belly Cafe where Megan had a Jelly Belly-shaped cheeseburger. All in all, a neat place.

iTunes outsells traditional music stores

For its comparison, the company compared 12 separate song downloads at iTunes to a single album purchase at an ordinary retail store. Using that measure, iTunes scored higher than Tower, Borders and Sam Goody.

Impressive and unexpected

Las Vegas, Man of La Mancha photos

In one of my quickest updates yet, I've posted photos from our Las Vegas mini-vacation that were just picked up this evening. There is still one more roll that will probably not get developed until after Christmas.

And in one of my slowest updates (yet), I've posted photos from the April/May 2005 production of Man of La Mancha. However, I did have literally hundreds of nearly identical images to comb through and most were not in chronological order.

Las Vegas November 2005
Man of La Mancha 1
Man of La Mancha 2

Paris Hilton doesn't change facial expressions

Warning: May cause seizure. Oh, and the images flash really fast, too.

DRM Crippled CD: A bizarre tale in 4 parts

The key restriction of this particular DRM is that it renders a disc nontransferable to the iPod. Nor can you make a backup copy, or travel discs, or a copy for the weekend house, or use any of the songs on a mixed disc. Oh, and it won't work with my iTunes Music software (and that also means no shuffle play).