WARNING: THERE IS A MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK!!! DO NOT TURN THE PAGE!

Oh wait, wrong story.

At any rate, your assignment should you choose to accept it, (and you will because Zann and I said so), is to click on the above link and read the book. Don't worry it's not a novel. Small children read this book, and seeing as most of us here have proven to have the attention span of a five-year-old, I think you should be able to handle it with ease.

When you're done, leave us a comment and let everyone on EXP301 know the lesson you've learned (brownie points for the most creative answers). And hey, while you're at it, let us know your favorite Little Golden Book.

Online golden book brought to you by Toughpigs.com

The Reflex Tester

post your best times :D

someone has decided that this girl shall be the spokesperson to tastey snacks. i am wondering if she is related to the girl who decades ago exclaimed, "Daaad! When are ya gonna eat that pickle?!"

My new favorite holiday recipe. I made this last year for a bunch of the guys here in NYC, and the look on their faces was priceless. You would not imagine the number of "potty" jokes that come with eating crap and actually enjoying it... I'll be making it again this year.

Reindeer Poop

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons cocoa
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups oatmeal -- not instant
1/2 cup chopped nuts -- optional

Preparation:
Mix butter, sugar, milk and cocoa together in a large saucepan.
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly; boil for 1 minute.
Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients.
Drop by teaspoon full (larger or smaller as desired) onto wax paper and let harden.
They will set up in about 30-60 minutes.
These will keep for several days without refrigerating,
up to 2 weeks refrigerated and 2-3 months frozen.

Pack into ziplock sandwich bags and attach the following note to each bag.

I woke up with such a scare when I heard Santa call...
"Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!"
I ran to the lawn and in the snowy white drifts,
those nasty reindeer had left "little gifts".
I got an old shovel and started to scoop,
neat little piles of "Reindeer Poop!"
But to throw them away, seemed such a waste,
so I saved them, thinking-you might like a taste!

As I finished my task, which took quite awhile.
Old Santa, passed by and he sheepishly smiled.
And I heard him exclaim as he was in the sky...
"Well they're not potty trained, but at least they can fly!"

a great collection of accident photos and stories... i haven't seen anything too gruesome yet.

Photos of the Week - Index of Previous Photos

i long for the days of spending hours on activity workbooks. it was a great way to pass the time in the car on the way to the family feast.

Is it a coincidence that AOL is offering free virus protection during cold and flu season?

Is it a coincidence that I used AOL spell check to write the last question, and it didn't want to respell AOL?

i have one. and i'm not the only one.

it's an extremely cool piece of hardware.

i didn't feel it necessary to take extensive pictures of something already so photographed on the web (nintendods.com), but i think this diagram will prove vastly informative:



what's the DS stand for? dual screen? i dunno. i don't care. i can play Mario 64 as Yoshi now.

the system has launched with a miserably small assortment of games, the re-released Mario game among them, so that is all i got. this blow is softenened by the Metroid demo cartridge that comes with every system--the demo includes four playable levels to test out the kickass multiplayer features of the DS.

contrary to the instruction manuals' claims, our DS's came fully charged and ready to giggle over. you get an extra stylus for the fancyass touch screen, and it couldn't be simpler to make the systems interact. they include a bit of software built in called Pictochat, where you can, well, draw pictures and chat. we didn't test out the range of the wireless connection, but you are supposed to be able to move up to 100 feet apart. i may have made that number up, but i know you don't have to be standing right next to the person.

the other bonus is the backwards compatibility. you have two slots for games: one for the extremely cute new DS carts, which are so little (the size of a half dollar coin, if half dollar coins were rectangular), those of you with gorilla hands won't be able to pick them up off the floor if you drop them, and a larger slot for the GBA games. you will NOT be able to play the original Game Boy games, so keep your GBA around for that backwards compatibility.

another thing you should know is the NDS doesn't connect to the Cube, at least not with the same cable as the GBA. this could change in the future--rumor has it there is an enormous group of accessories to come. a worm light will not be necessary, as the backlighting is even nicer than what's found on the GBA SP.

why didn't they have this shit when i was still in college? hell, why didn't they have it when i was a kid? i suppose that's for the better, because the original Game Boy and Tetris blew my mind apart, so having a DS in those days would have killed me.

• Aussies to try contraceptive spray - as much as i love Aussie hair sprays, i don't trust this birth control spray idea any more than i trust the new spray-on pantyhose or spray-on tans.
  
• eBay reopens Virgin Mary cheese sandwich auction - miraculously free of mold.
  
• Jackson bashes Eminem and his video - the conflict that was bound to happen: Whacko Jacko vs Eminem. never thought i'd say this, but i'm on MTV's side, even though their motives are probably profit and publicity rather than freedom of speech.
  
• Hunting over the Web - i don't know exactly why, but this seems very wrong.
  
• (Drunken) Elephants Rampage through India Villages - pink ones.
  
• Profanity Adventures - "a nostalgic look at what used to happen when you tried typing swear words into text adventures"

Thanksgiving Day television lineup:


9am on NBC - Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. If it's not snowing, maybe I'll attend and hold up a EXP301 sign or something.

2pm on NBC - Miracle on 34th Street. I have yet to watch this movie in my 25 years on the planet.

8pm on ABC - A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving! Zann you must remind to watch this time.

830pm on ABC - Jim Carey's How the Grinch Stole Christmas. (Which really means that it's only a matter of time before the Seuss's Grinch shows up!)

End transmission.

i call it get free backgrounds for your Geocities web page! check them all out! ...where's the Tylenol?

Mr Black drew this game to my attention:

The Mystery of Time and Space

it's one of those games where you wake up in a room and have to find your way out--an idea i felt was well preserved by the movie Saw, which i am still jumpy about. the game's good for a couple hours of fun, and has a lot of humor added to it, which few other games of this type have. and the end is weird.

Disturbing news. "Chocoholics may need to stock up, pay up or find a new addiction now that deadly violence in Africa's Ivory Coast has cut off 40 percent of the world's cocoa supply."

40% folks. That is the worst bit of news I've heard all day. I am distraught (and how terrible is it that I'm saddened by the loss of chocolate, more than the violence on the Ivory Coast.)

Forget Osama and Saddam. Save chocolate!

as the blog's resident tv coorispondent, i am happy to bring you a fun article i read in the Las Vegas Weekly while i was on the bus.

24 hours of straight TV !!

what says November than a rotting jackolantern?

I have three..

I love the Budweiser commercials, with the clydesdale horses...

I love the Folgers commercial from the 80's where the son comes home from college and wakes everyone up by making a pot of coffee... and the little girl comes down the stairs and yells "Peter!!"

I love the commercial where the marine stands at attention and the little boy keeps asking him if he's Santa Claus, and he doesn't move or answer, and then the boy says "well if you are... here's my list.." and the soldier opens his hand a tiny bit and the boy smiles and slips the list into his hand...

What are yours?

Mario vs. Sonic - funny, but esoteric. Sonic sucks.

Revenge of the Photocopier - very cute commercial. more than meets the eye.

Pong humor?!? - the sort of thing we all envisioned while playing Pong... back when we still had to use our imaginations for video games.

the Ashlee Simpson fiasco - bleh.

Crazy Cat videos - i love ebaumsworld

I like pudding; and i think Ghost Dad was the best movie i've seen since Lenard part six.