euicho.com

The Cat and the Crow

// January 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Books, Movies, Music, and TV, the cool, weird, and funny

This is old, but it is just too adorable for words…

The Website is Down

// July 2nd, 2008 // No Comments » // Books, Movies, Music, and TV, the cool, weird, and funny

I’ve watched and listened to many funny tech support videos and saved phone calls over the years, but even though this one is staged, its one of the funniest I’ve seen in a long long time. I love his Halo/linux/XP multitasking skills. This one is a little long, but every minute of it is golden.

ROFLCON: Lulz From Afar

// April 25th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // the cool, weird, and funny

If you’re like me… then you really need some help, dude. But kidding and warped sense of humor aside, if you’re like me then you a) love internet memes, and b) cannot make it to ROFLCON 2008 *ARRGGG*!

Fear not, dear friends, for you needn’t An Hero nor sit at home alone in the dark all weekend. Instead, you can sit at home alone on the internet, watching live footage and updates and picture from ROFLCON all weekend!!!1SHIFT How fun‽

Sauces include live video from ustream, a flickr pool, twitters, and bright kite. So as not to whore out other’s hard work, go to roflcon.org for the links to these delicious little media morsels.

I’ll be on most of these services as euicho, on and off over the weekend. If you see me on there, say hi!

IIIII Just want to tell you how I’m feelin’

// April 2nd, 2008 // 1 Comment » // the cool, weird, and funny

With the rick-roll sweeping the interwobbles, inciting shenanigans and leaving lulz in its wake, I thought I’d school you on its interesting origin!

The rick-roll, like a good 80% of all other hilarious memes on the internet, cometh from teh 4chan.

If you don’t know what 4chan is, you’re lucky. It is the asshole of the internet. Seriously, don’t google it. Don’t… I mean it. Okay, if you MUST, read this [NSFW]:.

Anyway, 4chan is an image board where immature boys, racists, the occasional camwhore, and pervs all go to anonymously discuss all sorts of terrible things. If you’ve ever seen The Aristocrats or know what The Aristocrats is, its pretty much that in web form.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that many unsavory characters roam this website, many memes originate from this pit of despair. The ORLY owl, for example (ORLY came from somethingaweful forums, but not the owl) and all the great 300 macros [NSFW] like “I FORGET WHERE WE ARE DINING TONIGHT” came from 4chan, to name two mild examples.

Now, the Rick-roll is actually the successor to a much less funny trap called the Duckroll, in which a link that seems to point to a post earlier in a thread instead takes you to a video of a duck on wheels (duck + roll = duckroll) with a trippy song. Cute, I know, but not that funny really.

Anon (you do know “Anon” aka “Anonymous” comes from 4chan, don’t you? Yes THAT Anon) took this idea and ran with it, creating something far more infectious by using the amazing 80’s gem “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. Much funnier than a duck on wheels. This became the Rick-roll, and now you know where the “roll” comes from! Now you may go off and rick-roll your friends, smug in the fact that you know the origins of the Rick-roll.

Happy New Year’s Day!

// January 1st, 2008 // No Comments » // Personal/Blog News

Happy New Year’s Day everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season — I know I certainly had a great one.

I had a great Christmas this year as usual. I really feel blessed this time of year when the family comes together and the cards all come in from relatives across the country. Mom flew up to see the baby and have Christmas with us, and I got to play and bond with baby Parker for a whole week. I was really glad to be able to see both Mom and Dad this year, and Amme and I had an all around great week with our families. I got some fantastic new toys this year, but I’m not the bragging type, so I’ll just say I am humbled by the generosity of all in my family (which includes Amme’s family).

We’ve been getting inundated with snow this winter. Something I was afraid I’d not see again after the terrible winter we had last year. I believe we’re up to 4 or 5 major snow storms this year. And today we’re getting another 5-8 inches on top of the 8 we got two days ago! I can’t wait to go to the mountain for some serious powder carving on my snowboard!

Trevor came up again this year and spent Christmas with his mother before heading up north to visit with us. Alyssa got Guitar Hero 3 for Christmas and got Amme and all of us guys hooked on it. After arriving back in Bangor I borrowed GH 2 from my friend Carl, then rented GH 3 and We Love Katamari, so we’ve pretty much been playing PS2 non stop for the past few days. We’ve beat both Guitar Hero games on easy mode and are half way through both on medium difficulty.

Trevor is a minor scrabble deity (he has to do EVERYTHING to an extreme) so I’ve been getting coaching from him on becoming a better player. I was fairly dreadful before (I had no strategy to speak of) so I’m excited to play more. Theres a great free program by www.ISC.ro that lets you play scrabble with other people or computers, and they’re all rated so you know everyone’s relative skill level. I was playing earlier today and almost got trounced by Trevor came to my rescue during the last few seconds of play to win by a scant 12 points.

Every year I hold a New Years Eve party for the Caribou gang, and we usually have some fun idea or gimmick. This year Trevor brought up the idea of building a Rube Goldberg Machine, and though neither of us were sure that we’d have the drive to see it through to completion, it ended up being a great success. Trevor and I did the preliminary setup on the 29th and 30th, and Doody and Jason helped bring it all together on the 31st. Though our engineers Zach and Jesse couldn’t make it home, they were definitely there in spirit, and mentioned them a few times while trying to solve various problems. We also missed Jalbey, Johnny, Evan, Justin, and everyone else that couldn’t make it up. We hope they all had great times anyway.

Our original intent was to set it off and have it finish its task exactly as the ball dropped in times square (our task was to have a “Happy New Years” sign be raised on a string), but we were sure it would fail in some way at the crucial moment so we set it to record on the DVR just in case. That ended up being unnecessary, however, when it not only worked perfectly when the moment arrived, but also was timed to the second! We took a video of it with Doody’s camcorder and threw it on YouTube, you can check it out below or see it on my www.youtube.com/euicho page.

Again its been a fantastic holiday season and thank you to everyone in my life for making this past year great. I can’t wait to see what 2008 brings for us all.

Crazy Crash-test Videos

// August 1st, 2007 // 1 Comment » // the cool, weird, and funny

I just had to share these crash-test compilation videos by jospi69 with you all. My favorite is the dumptruck vs. barrier in the first video. I like to shout “DENIED!” at the POI.

Doody and Johnny on Youtube

// July 15th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Books, Movies, Music, and TV, the cool, weird, and funny

Doody took some videos with his new mini dv camcorder this past weekend that you should check out, especially the windmill project in Mars Hill, ME.

You can see all his videos on his user page.

Johnny AKA John Nells also has some great videos on youtube, including a bunch of amazing covers. One of the best Pumpkins covers on youtube is his one of Today, but all of them are really great. Go check them out on his user page. He also has a project called The Blue Field Entoptic Phenomenon. Check it out on myspace!

Left 4 Dead

// July 7th, 2007 // 5 Comments » // Gaming

Turtle Rock Studios is developing a new Zombie survival game called Left 4 Dead, and it looks really rad. Left 4 Dead is meant for online play, and the coolest part about it is the face that you can play as either a survivor or one of the infected!

Similar to Chuck Palahniuk’s novel “Rant”, a highly virulent strain of ravies has spread through the population. As is the case in any survival horror movie, your job is simply to survive by any means necessary. You’ll need to use teamwork, covering your friends, and reviving them when they fall (think Counter-Strike against Zombies). As an infected, you are driven to bite and kill any survivor you see. Through either sheer force or teamwork with your infected brethren, you must get to the survivors.

Not a lot of information has been released yet, but there is a gameplay video thanks to the PC Gamer Video Podcast.

The graphics look really decent, and the player animations are really well done as well. One to eight players can join in on the game –too bad, a more battlefield2-ish 64 players would have been totally amazing– with 20 maps in the initial game release (via Steam). Turtle Rock found the completely open level design to be too frustrating and hard (just staying alive in this game is said to be next to impossible) so the levels are instead of a ’structured’ linear design.

The only melee attack is a shove move with your weapon, which is said to be a critical skill to use, but leaves me wanting a better selection of melee weapons (knife, hatchet, katana…). Still, Left 4 Dead looks like it may become a LAN party favorite. We’ll have to wait and see. Left 4 Dead will be relased some time later this year.

The Return of an Old Friend: Starcraft II

// May 30th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Books, Movies, Music, and TV, Gaming

Have you heard yet? You havn’t? And you call yourself a gamer? Psht. I can’t believe you don’t know. Well, I guess I’ll tell you about it, because its so freakin’ cool. Its Starcraft, you see… its BACK!

Thats right, Starcraft II is in production, and whats better is they’ve released some teasers that are sure to make any gamer drool with longing and giggle with delight. Jesse has been bugging me to post about this for a little while now, but I’ve been putting it off like a bad little blogger. I apologize for depriving you all of this eye-candy so to make it up to you, I’ll give you links to the goodies first, and then give you a few highlights.

Here is the Gameplay video and Trailer (be sure to watch the gameplay video!) and
some screenshots while you wait for the 20+ minute video to download (goes fast on a decent connection).

So, in between oogling the screens, and waiting for the video to d/l, why dont you read on about a few of the cool things in Starcraft II:

This long-awaited second installment of the Starcraft series will not dissapoint old-timers nor the new gaming generation. It keeps the 3rd person aerial view, with the additional ability to change the viewing angle, but updates the old motif with beautiful new textures, silky smooth new unit animations, and a new physics system for falling debris and the like.

Don’t worry, this isn’t just starcraft I with a new 3d engine. Blizzard has stayed true to the delicate balance of the beloved three races of Zerg, Protoss, and Terran, but have updated the races with all sorts of goodies.

For one, there are new units like immortals, stalkers, the colossus, and an awe-inspiring gem I shall not spoil here. These new units, and many old favorites, sport new weapon types and defenses like the planet cracker, new shields and laser weapons, and something called the “time bomb!”

There is also a new “IK system” which I believe integrates multiple-level terrain that can be moved across by certain units, and includes holes in the ground revealing the infinity of space.

In addition to offline story mode and multiplayer battles against either the computer or online players via Battlenet –which, BTW, is getting a total overhaul (No word yet on what that may entail)– Starcraft II will also have story modes available online. That should be interesting to say the least. Lastly, Blizard says they’ll provide fully-functioning map making and scripting tools for players to create custom maps and battle scenarios.

There is currently no release date, which is good as it ensures they won’t be rushing out a half-assed product. Also, Starcraft II is only in development for the PC, which IMHO is just the way it should be.

NYC Bike Messenger Race

// May 25th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Books, Movies, Music, and TV, the cool, weird, and funny

I promise this isn’t turning into a video filter site, I’ve just seen some fun things to share with you all! Heres the last one for a few posts i swear!

Its a Bike Messenger race in NYC, and there are some insane squeezes and close calls. Notice the “skitching” (grabbing onto a moving car so they can pull you along) at about 3:10. And here I used to think motorcyclists had a death wish!