Step 1: Undeniably cute, funny and accidental source material. Enter Melissa Brandts’ photo, featured in National Geographic’s Photo of the Day:

My husband and I were exploring Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park-Canada when we stopped for a timed picture of the two of us. We had our camera set up on some rocks and were getting ready to take the picture when this curious little ground squirrel appeared, became intriqued with the sound of the focusing camera and popped right into our shot! A once in a lifetime moment!

Step 2: Get posted on BoingBoing.net. Check.

Step 3: Unleash the throngs of immature amateur Photoshoppers across the internet to cut out the newly dubbed “Crasher Squirrel” and paste him into the foreground of many, many other photographs with sometimes hilarious results. Check. Check. Check.

Step 4: Get it out of your system by creating your own:

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I was caught off guard when I first saw a commercial for the Special Edition Barack Obama Chia Pet a few minutes ago. Up until the last two seconds I was convinced it was a hoax, being as how I was watching the commercial on Comedy Central. Yet, alas, it is a real product that some person has designed, created, manufactured, boxed and is currently taking pre-orders for.

We’ve seen the Obama Action Figure, crappy Obama Commemorative Coins and Ty’s uncalled for Sweet Sasha, Marvelous Malia dolls, so I guess we should expect anything. You can take the Obama Chia (availiable in Determined Chia Obama or Happy Chia Obama facial expressions) as offensive, funny, stupid or a must have. I think we can all agree that these are very, very strange times in which we live.

Why wasn’t there ever a Millard Fillmore Chia?

Chia Obama [chiaobama.com]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Seems that news got around about NASA letting the public vote on the name of the next module to be added to the International Space Station, and on the March 3rd episode of the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert took it upon himself to implore his viewers to add his name as a write-in. Within 24 hours of the episode airing, “COLBERT” is now the #1 user suggested name for the Node 3 module, easily overtaking “XENU,” the believed vengeful galactic dictator taught by the Church of Scientology. The leading name from NASA’s provided choices is currently “SERENITY” with 86% of votes.

Even if COLBERT receives the most votes it is highly unlikely NASA will officially name Node 3 after him. The terms and conditions listed on the voting webpage indicate that “the results are not binding on NASA and NASA reserves the right to ultimately select a name in accordance with the best interests of the agency, its needs, and other considerations.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Colbert implored his influence on the internet. In August 2006 he commanded his viewers, affectionately known as the Colbert Nation, to edit the Wikipedia page for Elephant to update it with the “fact” that the wild elephant population had swelled and was no longer on the endangered species list. The ploy worked as thousands flocked to the page to update it, leading to the entry being locked for editing to prevent further vandalism.

In the end, Colbert, who frequently references his enthusiasm of space exploration, may not get the ISS node named after him. Instead, I suggest that we take Node 3’s copula, the protruding observation deck attached to it’s exterior, and name it the Colbert Bump.

The Colbert Report, Help NASA Name Node 3 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Heads up! Potentially free stuff!

Smashing Magazine (www.smashingmagazine.com) is currently looking for 5,000 comments to a single blog post from which they will randomly choose winners of some pretty cool prizes including a Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card, Sennheiser PXC 350 headphones and a Microsoft Arc Mouse. The catch is that they are requiring the post gets at least 5,000 comments or else no prizes get distributed. All you have to do is post a comment with your City, Country and your current weather and you’re in!

Smashing Magazine – Hardware Giveaway: 5,000 Comments Challenge!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Geeks and techies around the globe are looking forward to the release of Mozilla’s Firefox 3 web browser, scheduled for official release on June 17th. In addition to the rollout, the Firefox marketing community at SpreadFirefox.com (which I am conveniently a member) is looking to set a Guiness World Record for most software downloads in 24 hours (since no previous record of that kind has been set, it shouldn’t be too hard to achieve).

I’ve been using a portable version Firefox 3 RC2 for the past few weeks and I must highly recommend the download. All of my friends and family are faithful Firefox converts, thanks to me, and I’m sure to be installing this latest major release for them as well. When its finally released tomorrow (June 17), head on over to GetFirefox.com to upgrade!

SpreadFirefox.com Download Day 2008

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

In addition to providing all their music as high quality, unrestricted, DRM-free mp3s, you can also find some freebies at the Amazon.com Music Download store. Unlike those other freebies you download, these freebies are totally legit… no need to worry about the RIAA knocking down your door and violating your nether-cavities.

Sure, a bunch of the freebies are duds, but with some patient searching you can find a gem. Case-in-point, I urge everybody to grab a copy of “Dead Sound” by The Raveonettes from their newest album Lust Lust Lust. I first heard this duo on Letterman and got hooked to their distortion-laden ’50s style rock-n-roll mixed with a modern Indie sound and vocal harmonies. See kiddies, I can sound like I’m hip to the music scene, too.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Add another desktop wallpaper site to the pile: Social Wallpapering is a community desktop background site featuring almost 3,000 (and growing) high quality images for standard, widescreen and dual-monitor setups. Most images are photographic, with a few digital and 3-D illustrations thrown into the mix. Social Wallpapering is a cut above the rest, featuring easy to use filtering and even an RSS feed to subscribe to the latest uploads.

www.socwall.com

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

“What I Killed Today” is a blog belonging to a veterinary technician who documents every animal they euthanize from day to day. Some posts are rather blunt, simply stating the what and why. Yet many are enough to make a grown man cry, such as:

Saturday, December 08, 2007
a 16 year old pomeranian. the family was present in the room. they were wearing very formal clothes, all black, as if they were attending a funeral. i tried not to make anything of it but, during their grieving, they stated that they were actually on their way to a funeral for a friend who had died – a 44 year old woman with a nine year old daughter. they were sobbing, i cried as well and felt no need to hide my tears. the dog wimpered with the injection and tried to fight it a bit. then he laid down and rested.

I found this post, the only one accompanied by a photo, especially haunting:

Monday, August 01, 2005
Barn owl with a broken femur. It held the mask in place with its good foot as I anesthetized it.

whatikilledtoday.blogspot.com [via BoingBoing]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

After much tribulation, Petco.com refunded me for my 300+ dead mealworms.

The tribulation came in when trying to contact the Petco.com “Customer Support.” Contact forms found on Petco.com, which idiotically limit your complaint to only 1500 characters, once submitted, apparently get delivered to Pluto, because I received no response. Fed up with the contact forms, I went searching for an actual physical email address. Naturally, none exist anywhere on Petco.com. The email listed on my packing slip, cs@orders.petco.com, turned out to be invalid. Finally, I found through Google references to orders@petco.com, decided to give it a shot, and finally got through to someone.

So, hey Petco, thanks for living up to the Live Food 100% guarantee and giving me a refund, but if you’re not going to check your website form submissions, how about listing some email address on your site? Woof.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

If you’ve ever wondered what 300 dead waxworms look like, today is your lucky day!

I recently ordered, for the first and now last time, live reptile food (waxworms, specifically) directly from Petco.com. You see, my pet box turtle loves eating the things. In fact, she will eat nothing else. I regularly buy waxworms from the Petco brick-and-mortar stores where a container of 50, which lasts about a week, goes for about $6.00. Online they sell them in containers of 500 for $20.00 + $8.00 shipping. I did the math, found a 10% off coupon from RetailMeNot, and the 500 container seemed like a deal, so I ordered them.

I realistically didn’t expect to receive all 500 of the little buggers perfectly unharmed. However, a box filled with miniature death is not what I had in mind. After sorting out the survivors, I would say at least 60% arrived in black, sticky clumps, which you see in the above image filled 2 plastic containers near to the brim. The smell was hardly describable, it could only be equated to what one would imagine how 300 miniature rotting human corpses would smell.

Needless to say, I am one peeved consumer. I’ve currently got a Customer Service request into Petco.com regarding this, and you’d better believe I sent them this image to enjoy as well. I’ll keep everyone updated.*

*as if we had any readers…
…but if we do, let us know your online ordering horror stories in the comments!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!