BrainFuel

MeetWithApproval.com is pretty cool. I like the design and simple layout. It was designed by a British company.

A Tennessee Vacation is a really cool site built to promote, ah, well, that’s obvious. I like the layout and textures used. It’s definately eye candy all over the place. Don’t miss the section called A Tennessee Winter.

Courtesy of that guy from MODxcms.com

Can you call a business that makes 20+ million dollars a year successful if its entire corporate staff is afraid of upper management and morale is low?

What if this company encounters major business emergencies on a monthly, if not weekly basis, and yet the management staff still goes home at 5 o’clock and sleeps soundly?

What if this company were able to blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on mistakes and not learn anything?

Yet at the end of the year they turned a profit.

Are they successful?

Chase Field

Home Plate

It’s Friday again. It’s also Black Friday (the day U.S. retailers cater to millions and begin Christmas shopping festivities). Yesterday on Thanksgiving I reclaimed some of my ping pong losses after I played a series of good games. Now it’s time for a caption contest. Your job is to come up with a funny caption for this photo and post it in the comments.

The Parrot

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity.

John tried and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to clean up” the bird’s vocabulary.

Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder.

John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet.

Not a peep was heard for over a minute. Fearing that he’d hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John’s outstretched arms and said “I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions.

I’m sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.”

John was stunned at the change in the bird’s attitude.

As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued, “May I ask what the turkey did?”

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Also, this from Benjamin Franklin’s biography:

The Real Story of the First Thanksgiving
By Benjamin Franklin (1785)

“There is a tradition that in the planting of New England, the first settlers met with many difficulties and hardships, as is generally the case when a civiliz’d people attempt to establish themselves in a wilderness country. Being so piously dispos’d, they sought relief from heaven by laying their wants and distresses before the Lord in frequent set days of fasting and prayer. Constant meditation and discourse on these subjects kept their minds gloomy and discontented, and like the children of Israel there were many dispos’d to return to the Egypt which persecution had induc’d them to abandon.

“At length, when it was proposed in the Assembly to proclaim another fast, a farmer of plain sense rose and remark’d that the inconveniences they suffer’d, and concerning which they had so often weary’d heaven with their complaints, were not so great as they might have expected, and were diminishing every day as the colony strengthen’d; that the earth began to reward their labour and furnish liberally for their subsistence; that their seas and rivers were full of fish, the air sweet, the climate healthy, and above all, they were in the full enjoyment of liberty, civil and religious.

“He therefore thought that reflecting and conversing on these subjects would be more comfortable and lead more to make them contented with their situation; and that it would be more becoming the gratitude they ow’d to the divine being, if instead of a fast they should proclaim a thanksgiving. His advice was taken, and from that day to this, they have in every year observ’d circumstances of public felicity sufficient to furnish employment for a Thanksgiving Day, which is therefore constantly ordered and religiously observed.”

You know how lunch spots always have a big bowl for throwing in your business card? It’s right there as you pay. The idea is that you throw in your card and you can win a free lunch. With the promise of a drawing every single week (or some variation).

Well, I’m convinced that they don’t actually give away the free lunches. I’ve never won anything from throwing my card in the glass bowl and I’ve been to my fair share of restaurants.

What’s even worse is that I’ve noticed a new trend. Restaurants have the bowl for cards but no explanation or card that says what happens with the information (No privacy policy? Shocking!). People must be so used to the gimmick that they mindlessly throw in their card.

Or maybe it’s because when people get cards printed they have 900 more than they will ever use and it’s a great way to dispose of the cards. What I want to know is whether you’ve actually won a free lunch before?

I just used several of the points in this article to write a proposal selling web standards.

Spam Bully for Outlook.

Some Wallace and Gromit screen captures.

Some cool textures.

Silent Sundays (via Louise)

Sony copy protection trojan horse in the news (via Kent)

Ever see a pure hydrogen car? Me either until a Sunday in November. Their is a guy in town heading up Global Hydrogen and you’ll start seeing their fleet in town. You can even lease a car for $300 mo.

Web 2.0 Workgroup.

Turbo DB Admin AJAX style (via Ben)

Cool David Coperfield trick (via Tom)

WinSCP for Windows is a secure FTP client.

Emergency preparedness.

Clever poster for Pixar’s Cars movie.

Superman trailer.

Todays Dilbert is going to be a classic.

CuteNews is a neat little flat file cms for handling news items.

Huge list of open source free CMSs.

Turkey frying experience anyone?