From AHN: Former Model Angie Everhart Arrested For DUI

Getting arrested for DUI is not terribly unusual for celebrities, but it turns out that there’s a little more to this story.  It turns out that Angie Everhart, the 38 year old former SI Swimsuit Model, was recently dumped by Joe Pesci.  Yeah, Joe Pesci.  It seems that he ended their nine month old engagement and has moved on to another girl.  The only good news for Angie is that this probably as low as you can possibly go.  It’s all up from here!

From NYTimes.com: Blu-ray: The Future Has Been Delayed

The end of the format wars clearly did little to boost Blu-ray’s prospects. Like others, Mr. Rubin said the much cheaper upconverting standard DVD players are winning consumers’ hearts and wallets.

Sony may have assumed with HD DVD dying that it had won the format war.  But, what Sony needs to realize is that the war isn’t over yet.  Now, it’s a battle against upconverted DVDs, Internet downloads, Cable and Satellite TV.  If they were smart, they’d aggressively push down the cost of the Blu-ray players to get as many customers to adopt this format as quickly and make money on movie sales later.  Right now, customers are just waiting and in the meanwhile trying the other alternatives.

I found out recently that the Xbox 360 upconverts DVD’s and while not HD quality, it’s still acceptable to watch. 

I noticed in the post The Truth About the Spinning Dancer, the animated GIF of the dancer spins significantly slower in Safari 3.1.1 vs. Firefox 2.0.14 running Mac OSX 10.5.2.  This is with a fresh launch of each program and only the page showing.  At first I thought it was the computer that I use at work, the original MacPro 2.0 Dual G5, but it’s the same on my home computer a MacPro Intel Quad Core.

CPU usage is actually about 30% more for Safari vs. Firefox while the animation seems to be about six times faster for Firefox.

Scrolling the image off of the screen reduced CPU usage by 50% in Firefox.  While in Safari, scrolling the image off screen reduced CPU usage to nearly zero.

From WashingtonPost.com: When the Cat’s Away, Neurosis Is on Display

One of Walsh’s occasional readers is Davis, who heard about the site a few months ago. The cartoonist calls the work “an inspired thing to do” and wishes to thank Walsh for enabling him to see another side of “Garfield.”

Garfield Minus Garfield is one of my favorite daily reads!

This image has been a source of amusement in my office for the last couple of days. If you look at the image, you can sometimes see the dancer change the direction of her
rotation.  But it’s not an indicator of Right/Left Brain dominance as some people have said (read the article below).

Everyone in my office could see it change except for my sister.  She probably would have thought it was a prank if it weren’t my mom exclaiming every time it changed direction for her.  My sister was convinced that it only rotated clockwise until she saw it change about 10 minutes later.

From NYTimes.com: The Truth About the Spinning Dancer

But while the dancer does indeed reflect the brain savvy of its creator, Japanese Web designer Nobuyuki Kayahara, it is not a brain test. Instead, it is simply an optical illusion called a reversible, or ambiguous, image. Images like this one have been long studied by scientists to learn more about how vision works.

Sometimes, a person will stare at an image and it will never reverse. Dr. Toppino advises staring at one part of the image, such as the foot, and most of the time it will eventually flip. I tried this several times, but it never flipped. Dr. Toppino says in people who can’t see the reversal, it may be that one underlying neural structure is more dominant, but once someone finally manages to see the flip, it will start to happen more often.

From the TimesOnline: Man stabbed while waiting to buy Grand Theft Auto IV

By 11pm, about a hundred people had gathered at Gamestation in Croydon, South London, when a 23-year-old man standing in the queue was stabbed several times by a passer-by.

Later, an 18-year-old man was mugged in Leyland, Lancashire, soon after buying a copy of the game for £40. Two robbers punched the victim to the ground and then kicked him, shattering his nose and jaw, according to the Manchester Evening News. They snatched the game before running away.

Getting caught up in crime while waiting to buy a game where you commit crimes.  Interesting.

The NYTimes.com has a pretty rave review of this game.  And lots of advertising.  Though, I’m not exactly sure what they’re advertising in the ad below.
  It looks like crime does pay. 
I’ve grown up playing video games, but I’ve never played any of this series.  Not really a fan of crime, but the high level of interactivity intrigues me.However, the level of interactivity in this picture is probably a little more than you need.

IGN Review

I found this NBC promo for the original Star Trek on YouTube.  It’s Star Trek in Color!  We’ll be looking back at HD the same way some time in the future. 

From NYTimes.com: “Give Peace A Chance” Lyrics Up For Sale

The lyrics are being sold by comedy writer and presenter Gail Renard, who was 16 when Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their famous “Bed-In” at a hotel in Montreal in 1969.

Renard and a friend sneaked into the Queen Elizabeth Hotel where the recently married Lennon and Ono were holding a protest for peace and became friendly with the couple.

According to Christie’s, Lennon gave Renard some mementos, including the lyrics, telling her: “One day they will be worth something.”

I think I’d have a hard time selling something like this if I got it the same way she did. 

I took some pictures this weekend with my iPhone. 

The first picture is of my next door neighbor’s tree.  It was spectacular, but I didn’t have my SLR to take the picture so I whipped out the iPhone.  It’s actually a pretty nice picture with only a little color correction and sharpening with Photoshop.