Sneaking around like a Ninja at work

Do you have a boss that looks over your shoulder to see if you’re actually doing work and not chatting or playing games online on your computer? Well, according to this, a company in Korea is developing computer games that you can play without opening another window, so that you’ll less likely get caught. This is great, now productivity in the office will be decreased to about 10%!

Here are other ways to sneak around and lower your productivity:

If you are able to use headphones while working, Listen to a movie is a site that streams the audio portion of movies or television shows. You’re probably asking why in the world would I listen to a movie or television show without being able to watch it? Well, that’s what I thought at first, but once you've already seen a movie or television show, trust me, you won’t need the visuals. This is perfect for comedy stand-ups films like Chris Rock’s Bigger and Blacker or Eddie Murphy’s Raw. They surprisingly have an extensive list of movies from Austin Powers to Zoolander and Television shows like Friends or Seinfeld. The sneaky part is that the player can be hidden as an Excel spreadsheet! So it’s work "friendly". And of course it’s free.

If you like chatting online using instant messaging, but don’t want to be seen chatting on your screen, try using Trillian. It has a transparency option that "blends" your IM windows to your deskstop. If you like using AIM, try installing Middle Man. It's a plugin for AIM that enables it to be transparent and other cool features like eliminating those annoying ads or making yourself seem “idle”. And of course they are both free.

Or if you have problems installing AIM on your work computer or any other applications for that matter because of "Administrator" issues, try installing it in the Temp folder as described in this article. If that doesn’t work, use the web based version of AIM or MSN messenger.

Now stop fooling around and get to work.

Best things in life are free – part deux

As a follow up to my previous post, here’s another list of free websites I visit for music, games and software:

You can download concerts recordings at Concert Archives for free. They have an extensive list of bands and surprisingly, they are recorded in good quality in different formats (MP3, Ogg, etc.). Few notables are 311, Maroon 5 and Vienna Teng. There may be a few bands you’ve never heard of, so this is a good site to explore and sample some of them.

There are many websites that offer free computer games but most of them aren’t worth your time. Liberated have some excellent, but dated games like Doom and Grand Theft Auto for free. Acid Play and Anandtech, also has a list of quality games for free.

Top free share wares lists 46 of the best free software found in the inter/web. There are a lot of useful utilities listed here that you may or may not know about already.

If you’re tired of Kazaa, Top P2P clients lists the best peer-to-peer file sharing programs. I’m surprise Soulseek isn’t listed. On a related note, if you like using bit torrents, Orb’s Torrent Sites Status lists some of the best torrent sites around.

The Gates is a POS

So, I went to see The Gates this weekend to check out this hoopla for myself.

I’m pretty sure I’m the millionth person to say this: WTF is the big deal? I’m not an art critic or expert, nor do I claim to be, but I really don’t see the point. Maybe, I am just too shallow to appreciate or comprehend the artist’s concept and intentions. But whatever it is, I think they’re just full of sh*t.

And, I still don’t quite understand why it cost $21 million dollars- yes, I know it’s 23 miles of orange curtains…excuse me, saffron-colored fabric panels, but you can get that in the garment district for $3 a yard. Obviously, someone is now $20 million richer. Perhaps it’s all just money laundering or tax break scheme for these rich f*cks, I mean folks. So I recommend to just look at the pics at the website and skip it altogether- you'll thank me from saving your time and disappointment.

Via: The Gates

What have you accomplished?

This is interesting. You enter an age and see a list of what others has accomplished at that age. I entered mine and it made me kinda feel small and unsubstantial. For a minute there, I was motivated to join the Peace Corp or Red Cross, maybe 10 seconds…Check yourself.


Via: Museum of Conceptual Art

Gizoogle and Shizzolator

This is hilarious. Check out these sites and have loads of fun. Gotta love those spinners on Gizoogle's banner.

Type in yo’ URL (http://) if wan yo’ webpage to be translatizzle to Snoop Dogg’s laguage-gizzle my shiznit nizzle. Go ‘n check this mutha out, you know what em sayin’…

Hit tha Gizoogle if yo’ sic of Google lame-azz-shizzle search results.
Hit tha Shizzolator if yo’ wan yo’ webpage to be tha pimp-shiznit.

Snoop’s da bomb shizzle.

mRey’s take on the GRAMMYs

I was watching the GRAMMYs last Sunday (more like browsing between performances), and it occurred to me that it’s becoming more and more irrelevant through the years. Does anyone really care anymore? Since the advent of the MP3s, internet and satellite radio, music has become more accessible and listeners aren’t limited to just the top 40 hits that play on their favorite local FM station. The spectrum of music selection for a listener has been widen so much so that one person could have a totally different music interest as the next. Therefore, awarding a musician over another has lesser meaning to music fans.

The recording academy tries to rectify the problem by appeasing all listeners and assigning hundreds of categories that are so specific that pretty much every nominee wins some award (Yay, everybody wins!). Is this really necessary? Is there really a difference between Pop Vocal album and Traditional Pop Vocal album? They even have TEN categories for Gospel. Do we really need to distinguish between Soul Gospel, Contemporary Soul Gospel and Pop Soul Gospel? Then, they further divide each genre with categories for record, song and performance. Why not just give one award to the artist, songwriter, engineer and producer for the album or song? And for the love of god, do we REALLY need a category for a Hawaiian Music Album? So if there aren’t any losers, why am I even watching? (I forgot that I was browsing). But aren’t having losers (and true winners) the reason to watch the show? So, it’s no wonder the music fans are uninterested.

And then, this year they named Ray Charles’s Genius Loves Company as Album of the Year. I love Ray Charles’ music and all, but that album does not even compare to his past works. We all know that he was awarded as a sentiment to his life’s work. But it’s unfair to other musicians in that category like Greenday’s American Idiot (which clearly should’ve won). Even Usher’s Confessions and Kanye West’s College Dropout were far superior.

Because of my disappointment, I have decided to put together my own music awards and cut it down to seven categories (yea, I’m a meat and potatoes guy who likes it short and to the point.). So here’s mRey’s 2005 Music Awards:

Best Rap Album: Kanye West - College Dropout

This album is the clear winner of the year. Although Kanye’s not as lyrical as say Jay Z or Nelly, Nelly’s Suit and Jay Z’s Black aren’t as polished and creative as Kanye's album. And his performance at the GRAMMYs should give an indication on why he won.

Best Rock Album: Green Day - American Idiot

They have re-defined punk rock in America Idiot and made it more accessible to a wider audience. Their maturity and growth shows throughout this punk-opera album (although I think they should quit wearing those thick eye-liners ala Good Charlotte).

Best Pop/RnB Album: Usher – Confessions

Top selling album of the year. Enough said.

Best Electronica/Dance Album: Sasha – Involver

The anticipated follow up to his awful ‘Airdrawndagger’ is a revelation. Remixing and re-editing each track to the point that he could have claim it as his own. This is Sasha’s best work to date. Mind blowing from the chilled out progressive trance start to the rock-all-out hard beats, dance your ass off ending. Why this was left out of the Grammy’s electronica/dance category boggles the mind.

Best Soundtrack: Garden State

Zach Braff’s collection of indie rock and melancholic electronica perfectly matches the film’s understated witty and gloomy tone.

Song of the Year: Usher w/ Lil Jon and Ludacris – Yeah

I was torn between this and Maroon 5’s This Love. But Usher’s crooning combined with Lil Jon’s crunkalicious hooks and Luda’s dirrrty lyrics makes it this year’s “it” song. When I started to hear “it” at weddings, then I had no doubt that it’s this year’s top song.

Album of the Year: Keane – Hopes and Fear

This stunning debut from the guitar-less rock trio got me hooked from my first listen. This album is stuffed with soaring melodic epic anthems that are catchy and deeply multi-layered from one song to the next. The band’s frontman Tom Chaplin has a Coldplay-eque falsetto voice that could tug and stomp the heartstrings of all the Gwyneth Paltrows ten times over. This instant classic has been stucked in my CD player for several months now and gets better and better through each listen- so it’s a must for everyone on my list.

Tune in for my post-Oscar bashing entry….

Best things in life are free

I wished the internet was widely available when I was in college (yea, that was a looong time ago), then I wouldn’t have to spend so much money on books. Below are sites of free resources I frequently visit:

Project Gutenberg has a collection of more than 13,000 free electronic books from classics authors such as Shakespeare, Poe, Dante, Twain and even Proust (I’m still in Volume 1). They even have books in 30 different languages like French, Korean, Tagalog and even Yiddish. You can download these e-books for free and store it on your Palm, Pocket PC, smart phones or even your iPod.

Free Programming Resources is a directory of online computer programming books, tutorials, compilers, tools, etc. And of course, they are all for free. This is a great site when you need to refresh your computer language skills, like C/C++, HTML or java scripts.

Squashed Philosophers is an online cliff notes of the best works from the greatest western philosophers of our time. Now you can catch up from all those times you slept through Philosophy 101, so you won’t feel like a tool when someone makes references to Hobbes or Nietzsche during conversations with your "snobbish" friends.

Internet Public Library is, well, an online public library. It’s a good resource site for those times when Google just doesn’t quite cut it.

Via: Project Gutenberg
Via: Free Programming Resources
Via: Squashed Philosophers
Via: Internet Public Library

Looking for love in all the wrong places

Need some help finding a Valentine in NYC? If you’re a single guy that needs help picking up the ladies, you may want to hire a Wing Woman. That’s right. For $50 an hour, you can have your own wing woman who will introduce you to the single ladies at the bars/clubs. No need to create those senseless pick-up lines- although knowing that you had to actually hire a wing woman indicates that you have a big “L” on your forehead. But having a female at your side scores you some “cool” points.


Or if you’re lucky enough, you can ride in Ahmed Ibrahim’s taxi cab, who will set you up in a blind date with another passenger, if he deems it to be a perfect match. Amazingly, he sets up about 8 people per week! Why go to a singles bar or club, when you can find your mate by riding a cab?

Via: Wing Women
Via: CNN

Sweet RazR Candy

Motorola will be releasing the candy-bar version of the Razr V3, which will be aptly named Slvr V8. It will be equipped with EDGE technology for high-speed internet access and unlike the Razr it will have video capture and an expandable memory via trans flash.

It looks pretty sweet and as thin as the Razr- it almost makes me want to switch out of the clam shell phones..almost.

Via: Mobile Files

Social Dys-function in NYC

Tired of loud people in bars and deafening music at clubs? Then you should try going to a Quiet Party. It’s like going to a library that serves alcohol and the only form of communication is through pen and paper. Sounds like a kick ass party, right? Yea, I didn’t think so. But passing nasty notes and naughty sketches would seem like a trip back to third grade- only you won’t get in trouble for it! I wonder if sign language is allowed, or better yet, body language!

If you think that’s strange, how about eating in total darkness? Yes, having Dinner in the Dark is fun because you don’t know what you’re eating until it’s in your mouth. It could be meat, could be cake- or better yet, meatcake! What an adventure, but the trip to the bathroom would be an adventure in itself. And of course, there is always that one person who would want to start a food fight. Fun, fun, fun.

And finally, if you like karaoke and movies, then you’ll love Movieoke. Now, any aspiring actor or movie geek can recite and even perform their favorite dialogue from any movie in front of a captive audience. (Oh, the horror...the horror. -from Marlon Brando in 'Apocalypse Now')


Via: Quiet Party
Via: Dinner in the Dark
Via: Movieoke

Hop Stop - MapQuest for NYC

Have you ever been late to go to a dinner/drinks party because you don’t exactly know where and how long to get there from your apartment? Well then you need to use Hop Stop.

It’s like a MapQuest for Manhattan, which gives specific walking and subway/bus directions and estimated time for us city slickers or out of town tourists. I’ve tried it out a few times and it’s more or less accurate- excluding subway/bus delays.

Next time, you can tell your friends so they'll have no excuse to be late- unless of course they do it purposely.

Via: Hop Stop

Best of Both Worlds

Being an avid skier that recently learned how to snowboard, it’s hard to decide whether to ski or board. I’m definitely a better skier, but I just can’t ignore how much fun boarding is.

So, which will I choose when I hit the slopes this weekend? Do both of course via Splitboard. It's a snowboard that can split into skis. The bindings rotate to position the boots for either boarding or skiing. Well, it’s not really designed for downhill skiing, but it's pretty damn cool nevertheless.


Via: Splitboard

Untamed Cinema - Grayson

I was a comic book fanatic during my wonder years and have been longing for a great superhero movie, ever since Superman was first released. But several of the DC/Marvel flicks (aside from Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’, ‘Spiderman 2’, ‘Blade 2’ and ‘X-men 2’) that are made today failed to capture the heart and soul of the comic book superhero. They lacked the kinetic energy and brilliant imagination that are in these comics.

Part of the problem is that some of the filmmakers and producers for these films aren’t really die-hard comic book fans. And some, just had flat-out awful scripts and shouldn’t have been made at all- i.e. ‘Daredevil’, ‘The Punisher’, ‘The Hulk’, ‘Catwoman’, ‘Elektra’, I could go on and on. There were glimpses of greatness in ‘The Incredibles’, but since it’s an animation, it doesn't really count.




So what could a comic fan do? Enter Grayson . No, it’s not a new Warner Bros. film, but a 5-minute trailer for a movie that sadly won’t ever be made. This was released last summer and is available for download at Untamed Cinema . The premise of the story is a bit vague but it seems that Batman has been murdered and Robin (aka Dick Grayson) is trying to unravel the conspiracy behind his death. What’s cool is that they managed to include various superheroes like, Superman, Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Batgirl, Green Lantern, Joker, Riddler and Penguin into one film, which most of these recent single-hero format films lack.




The filmmakers are hoping they would generate enough buzz so they could get recognition from Warner Bros to produce their work. You can sense that the filmmakers really put their hearts into making it even knowingly that they won’t get a dime from it. I hope the execs at WB would finally open their eyes. But with spectacles like ‘Fantastic Four’ and ‘Batman Begins’ releasing this summer, it seems that we would have to wait a while longer.

Via: Untamed Cinema