3:30am boredom fixers: Nestlé Crunch Hotline
If you can’t sleep and you’re looking for some inane entertainment, why not call the Nestlé Crunch Hotline? Believe it or not, there is much silly fun to be had. Here’s what to do…
Calling all Tellers of Tall Tales!
I’m putting together a video that will be played at our wedding (May 24, 2009), and one of the things I want to have is a bunch of people telling stories of how they “allegedly” heard we met. We want these to be as wacky as possible, and I know that my friends are a creative bunch. The format would be along the lines of these:
“I heard Dan and Katherine met…”
“Oh, Dan and Katherine?...
Chicago Tribue article mentions opalcat.com on Feb. 5 2009!
…sometimes someone hits on something in there that even I’ve forgotten that I wrote. This was the case this week when I was contacted by Chicago Tribune writer Charles Leroux about an obscure article on my site…
Fuzzball kitten savages a 130lb golden retriever
Exceedingly cute video of my 10 week old kitten beating up on my 10 year old, 130lb golden retriever. Smackdown ’08.
Juggling
I learned to juggle when I was 11 from a book called Juggling for the Complete Klutz. I have seen other books that teach juggling, such as The Complete Juggler and Carlos on Juggling, but in my opinion, Klutz is the best. The most important thing they emphasize (which most others fail to do) is the scoop motion in the toss, which allows the ball...
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Egyptian Rat Screw: Best Card Game Ever
Egyptian Rat Screw is a card game. It can be played by any number of people (but everyone has to be able to reach the center of the table.) and the goal of the game is to get all the cards…
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Explore the Mandelbrot Set with this Java fractal generator…
The Paper Airplane in the Forehead Trick
This is a “re-enactment” of an assignment I had in a makeup class. The assignment was to create some type of injury…
Make a Fabulous Cat Toy
This is an inexpensive and simple toy that you can make for your kitty that they will enjoy playing with just as much as that jingly ball you got them at the mall.
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This is a slideshow of my progress on my current painting.
My current work is tentatively titled “Creation” and is the second in the series that began with Being Art.
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[Warning: contains spoilers!] I didn’t know much about this movie when I walked into the theater. I knew it was supposed to be groundbreaking in filmography, and that it was getting a lot of press. I knew that it was in fancy-pants 3D and was…
2009 Art Slideshow Video
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The Sound of Glee
I had really high hopes for the new Fox show Glee this fall. I really loved the show “Fame” when I was a kid, and I hoped that this would have some of the same things I loved about that. I’m really trying to like this show, and for the most part, I do. I hope that the music gets better soon, though, because right now I cringe every time they start a new song…
So You Think You Can Dance 2008 Finals (Top 4) Recap
It looks like someone took a roll of duct tape and spiraled up Cat Deeley’s body with it.
Courtney and Twitch – music: “Church,” T-Pain. The costumes are horrible, but the dance is kind of cute and quite silly.
So You Think You Can Dance 2008 Top 6 Results Show Recap
Intro – The group dance is to Bette Midler’s The Rose, which is a gorgeous song. I think the choreography was good but the dancing could have been tighter. Parts of it that were supposed to be…
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The World's Worst Songs To Have Stuck In Your Head
Everyone knows that some songs are just… stickier than others. They can be great songs! It doesn’t mean the songs are bad…(though it sure makes it worse when they are)… but you can only have a song… or a verse…or a single line play through your head for so many hours…
Streaming Music Playlist
This is an experiment. There is a site that lets you assemble playlist and then put them on your site. I’ve just started this playlist so it’s rather anemic at this point, but it I will try to bulk it out with some of what I think is cool music.
I'm So Sick of Lyrics Websites!
So I’ve been listening to a lot of Sinead O’Connor in the car, and belting along at the top of my lungs (a pastime I’ve enjoyed since high school, might I add) but there are always a few little bits here and there that I can’t quite make out. Even after all these years of singing the same songs, I either never knew or I knew and then forgot the tricky bits. And so tonight...
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Game: Yahtzee
Play the classic dice game…
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Place 5 wolves and 3 sheep in the grid in such a way that no wolf can get any of the sheep…
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Hit the Opals as they pop up!
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What is up with fortune cookies, Part II
This is a followup to my previous article, What is up with fortune cookies these days? which I wrote after friends and I received some very strange “fortunes” in our fortune cookies.
Well, it’s happened again. Different restaurant. Three of these are just weird. One of those three is just stupid. Then the fourth one is just made of 100% pure awesome, and it was, appropriately, the one in my cookie.
The first weird one...
What is up with fortune cookies these days?
When I was growing up, I seem to recall that fortune cookies contained things like “you will meet a tall, handsome stranger” or cute little “Confucius say…” type phrases. These days it seems like they’re…um…different?
We ordered Chinese delivered tonight and each of us got a cookie. Here is what our “fortunes” were:
“You have a sincere desire to improve”
This one actually works well with the “-in bed” suffix, so it gets my approval.“Lucky you....
Clinton Campain + Bubblewrap!!!
I was contacted yesterday by a representative of Hillary Clinton’s campaign team asking if they could license my Virtual Bubblewrap for use in her newest online campaign ads. We haven’t worked anything out for sure yet, we’re still in the talking phase. Some of the ideas we’ve discussed are replacing the “random noise” bubbles’ sounds with sound bites from Hillary’s political speeches, or having the background be a picture of Hillary once all the...
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Amazon Kindle 2 - Most Amazing Thing Ever
I’ve had mine for just over a week (graduation present!) and I have to say I could NOT live without it at this point. I love this thing so much I told my mother in law that I’d give up chocolate for it if I had to.
Things I've Bought on Amazon
Amazon has a nifty widget that will display all the media (books, movies, music) you’ve bought from them. It’s kind of weird to look back and see things I bought almost 10 years ago, but it’s also a reminder of things like “oh hey, that was a cool book! I should go reread that…”
Now not everything is stuff I bought for myself. Some of these things were bought as gifts and such, but it’s sort...
Recent Readings... (Harry Potter, White Night, Coma, The Guardian)
Ok, after I finished the new Harry Potter book (I’ll write a review of that when I have more time), I only had one more new book sitting around—White Night by Jim Butcher (Dresden Files book #9). It was decent, entertaining, not high literature but good escapist reading just like the previous 8. (I’m pissed that they didn’t renew the show on the Sci Fi channel). I finished it pretty quickly. This left me...
