Fnord is evaporated herbal tea without the herbs.

Fnord is that funny feeling you get when you reach for the
Snickers bar and come back holding a slurpee.

Fnord is the 43 1/3rd state, next to Wyoming.
Fnord is this really, really tall mountain.
Fnord is the reason boxes of condoms carry twelve instead of ten.

Fnord is the blue stripes in the road that never get painted.
Fnord is the place where those socks vanish off to in the laundry.
Fnord is an arcade game like Pacman without the little dots.
Fnord is a little pufflike cloud you see at 5pm.

Fnord is the tool the dentist uses on unruly patients.
Fnord is the blank paper that cassette labels are printed on.
Fnord is where the buses hide at night.
Fnord is the empty pages at the end of the book.

Fnord is the screw that falls from the car for no reason.
Fnord is why Burger King uses paper instead of foam.
Fnord is the little green pebble in your shoe.
Fnord is the orange print in the yellow pages.

Fnord is a pickle without the bumps. Fnord is why ducks eat trees.
Fnord is toast without bread. Fnord is a venetian blind without the slats.

Fnord is the lint in the navel of the mites that eat
the lint in the navel of the mites that eat
the lint in Fnord’s navel.

Fnord is an apostrophe on drugs.
Fnord is the bucket where they keep the unused serifs for H*lvetica.
Fnord is the gunk that sticks to the inside of your car’s fenders.
Fnord is the source of all the zero bits in your computer.

Fnord is the echo of silence.
Fnord is the parsley on the plate of life.
Fnord is the sales tax on happiness.
Fnord is the preposition at the end of sixpence.

Fnord is the feeling in your brain when you hold your breath too long.
Fnord is the reason latent homosexuals stay latent.

Fnord is the donut hole.
Fnord is the whole donut.

Fnord is an annoying series of email messages.
Fnord is the color only blind people can see.

Fnord is the serial number on a box of
cereal.

Fnord is the Universe with decreasing entropy.
Fnord is a naked woman with herpes simplex 428.
Fnord is the yin without yang.
Fnord is a pyrotumescent retrograde onyx obelisk.

Fnord is why lisp has so many parentheses.
Fnord is the the four-leaf clover with a missing leaf.

Fnord is double-jointed and has a cubic spline.
Fnord never sleeps.
Fnord is the “een” in baleen whale.

Fnord is neither a particle nor a wave.

Fnord is the space in between the pixels on your screen.

Fnord is the guy that writes the Infiniti ads.
Fnord is the nut in peanut butter and jelly.
Fnord is an antebellum flagellum fella.

Fnord is a sentient vacuum cleaner.

Fnord is the smallest number greater than zero.
Fnord lives in the empty space above a decimal point.

Fnord is the odd-colored scale on a dragon’s back.
Fnord is the redundant coin slot on arcade games.
Fnord was last seen in Omaha, Nebraska.

Fnord is the founding father of the phrase “founding father”.
Fnord is the last bit of sand you can’t get out of your shoe.
Fnord keeps a spare eyebrow in his pocket.
Fnord invented the green hubcap.
Fnord is why doctors ask you to cough.

Fnord is the “ooo” in varooom of race cars.
Fnord uses two bathtubs at once.

I cannot escape them
No matter how I try
They wait for me everywhere
I cannot pass them by.

Innocuous sayings and parables
And on the evening news
I hear the word “FNORD!”
And suddenly I’m confused

I sit alone in my room
And I’m feeling rather bored
I turn on the tube and guess what
I hear the word “FNORD!”

“Don’t see the fnords and they won’t eat you”
That’s what I’ve heard the wisemen say
But I can’t get away from those beasties
There’s just no fucking way.

You ask, what’s so special about this super car? This super car can deliver blazing performance while at the same time use less petrol than your average super car, think in the lines of 17-20 km/l achieving 0-100 km/h in about 3.5 seconds, being able to go faster than 300km/h boasting with an impressive 450hp with dual turbos running an Acura V-Tech, V-6, Type S, 3.5 Liter power-plant from the 2008 TL TypeS.

The fuel economy is achieved using a build in electrolyzer powered by the alternator which converts water into hydrogen and oxygen (the mixture is known as brown gas), this mixture is then directly sucked into the engine where it is burned with the fuel which burns the fuel cleaner than an engine without hydrogen injection, that means almost zeros emissions while a 30-50% increase in fuel efficiency.

Aaaaaagh, screw the specs, like Jeremy Clarkson says, the car can be super fast, if it doesn’t appeal to the eye, it’s worthless (If you’re looking for more specs, take a look at Ronn Motors’ website)

Here’s some pics to drool over, my opinion . . . my favorite car until now, the Lamborghini Murcielago suddenly looks like a museum piece from the 80’s, love the Scorpion’s look!!!

Garret Loporto (in my opinion) is by far the best motivational speaker that ever set foot upon this earth!
His message is simple, yet covers all of life’s tough questions, in short: “Listen to your heart”.

His latest blog entry is rather touching and I believe it’s powerful enough to influence your perception of life in a positive way.

Listen to it live on his blog by clicking here or download it here.

Quote from Principia Discordia which is totally irrelevant (is it ever relevant?)

His worrying and meditation were disturbed when, as
if in a test of his faith, ordure fell from the second floor onto him. At that
time two people walked into the room. The first asked the second who the man
was sitting there was. The second replied “Some say he is a holy man. Others
say he is a shithead.”
Hearing this, the man was enlightened.

1. Log on, wait a sec, then get a frightened look on your face and scream “Oh my gosh! They’ve found me!” and bolt.

2. Laugh uncontrollably for about 3 minutes & then suddenly stop and look suspiciously at everyone who looks at you.

3. When your computer is turned off, complain to the monitor on duty that you can’t get the damn thing to work. After he/she’s turned it on, wait 5 minutes, turn it off again, and repeat the process for a good half hour.

4. Type frantically, often stopping to look at the person next to you evilly.

5. Before anyone else is in the lab, connect each computer to different screen than the one it’s set up with.

6. Write a program that plays the “Smurfs” theme song and play it at the highest volume possible over and over again.

7. Work normally for a while. Suddenly look amazingly startled by something on the screen and crawl underneath the desk.

8. Ask the person next to you if they know how to tap into top-secret Pentagon files.

9. Use Interactive Send to make passes at people you don’t know.

10. Make a small ritual sacrifice to the computer before you turn it on.

11. Bring a chainsaw, but don’t use it. If anyone asks why you have it, say “Just in case…” mysteriously.

12. Type on the computer for a while. Suddenly start cursing for 3 minutes at everything bad about your life. Then stop and continue typing.

13. Enter the lab, undress, and start staring at other people as if they’re crazy while typing.

14. Light candles in a pentagram around your terminal before starting.

15. Ask around for a spare disk. Offer $2. Keep asking until someone agrees. Then, pull a disk out of your fly and say, “Oops, I forgot.”

16. Every time you press Return and there is processing time required, pray “Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease,” and scream “YES!” when it finishes.

17. “DISK FIGHT!!!”

18. Start making out with the person at the terminal next to you (It helps if you know them, but this is also a great way to make new friends).

19. Put a straw in your mouth and put your hands in your pockets. Type by hitting the keys with the straw.

20. If you’re sitting in a swivel chair, spin around singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” whenever there is processing time required.

21. Draw a picture of a woman (or man) on a piece of paper, tape it to your monitor. Try to seduce it. Act like it hates you and then complain loudly that women (men) are worthless.

22. Try to stick a Nintendo cartridge into the 3 1/2 disc drive, when it doesn’t work, get the supervisor.

23. When you are on an IBM, and when you turn it on, ask loudly where the smiling Apple face is when you turn on one of those.

24. Print out the complete works of Shakespeare, then when its all done (two days later) say that all you wanted was one line.

25. Sit and stare at the screen, biting your nails noisily. After doing this for a while, spit them out at the feet of the person next to you.

26. Stare at the screen, grind your teeth, stop, look at the person next to you. Grind some more. Repeat procedure, making sure you never provoke the person enough to let them blow up, as this releases tension, and it is far more effective to let them linger.

27. If you have long hair, take a typing break, look for split ends, cut them and deposit them on your neighbor’s keyboard as you leave.

28. Put a large, gold-framed portrait of the British Royal Family on your desk and loudly proclaim that it inspires you.

29. Come to the lab wearing several layers of socks. Remove shoes and place them on top of the monitor. Remove socks layer by layer and drape them around the monitor. Exclaim sudden haiku about the aesthetic beauty of cotton on plastic.

30. Take the keyboard and sit under the computer. Type up your paper like this. Then go to the lab supervisor and complain about the bad working conditions.

31. Laugh hysterically, shout “You will all perish in flames!!!” and continue working.

32. Bring some dry ice & make it look like your computer is smoking.

33. Assign a musical note to every key (ie. the Delete key is A Flat, the B key is F sharp, etc.). Whenever you hit a key, hum its note loudly. Write an entire paper this way.

34. Attempt to eat your computer’s mouse.

35. Borrow someone else’s keyboard by reaching over, saying “Excuse me, mind if I borrow this for a sec?”, unplugging the keyboard & taking it.

36. Bring in a bunch of magnets and have fun.

37. When doing calculations, pull out an abacus and say that sometimes the old ways are best.

38. Play Pong for hours on the most powerful computer in the lab.

39. Make a loud noise of hitting the same key over and over again until you see that your neighbor is noticing (You can hit the space bar so your fill isn’t affected). Then look at your neighbor’s keyboard. Hit his/her delete key several times, erasing an entire word. While you do this, ask: “Does *your* delete key work?” Shake your head, and resume hitting the space bar on your keyboard. Keep doing this until you’ve deleted about a page of your neighbor’s document. Then, suddenly exclaim: “Well, whaddya know? I’ve been hitting the space bar this whole time. No wonder it wasn’t deleting! Ha!” Print out your document and leave.

40. Remove your disk from the drive and hide it. Go to the lab monitor and complain that your computer ate your disk. (For special effects, put some Elmer’s Glue on or around the disk drive. Claim that the computer is drooling.)

41. Stare at the person’s next to your’s screen, look really puzzled, burst out laughing, and say “You did that?” loudly. Keep laughing, grab your stuff and leave, howling as you go.

42. Point at the screen. Chant in a made up language while making elaborate hand gestures for a minute or two. Press return or the mouse, then leap back and yell “COVEEEEERRRRRR!” Peek up from under the table, walk back to the computer and say. “Oh, good. It worked this time,” and calmly start to type again.

43. Keep looking at invisible bugs and trying to swat them.

44. See who’s online. Send a total stranger a talk request. Talk to them like you’ve known them all your lives. Hangup before they get a chance to figure out you’re a total stranger.

45. Bring a small tape player with a tape of really absurd sound effects. Pretend it’s the computer and look really lost.

46. Pull out a pencil. Start writing on the screen. Complain that the lead doesn’t work.

47. Come into the computer lab wearing several endangered species of flowers in your hair. Smile incessantly. Type a sentence, then laugh happily, exclaim “You’re such a marvel!!”, and kiss the screen. Repeat this after every sentence. As your ecstasy mounts, also hug the keyboard. Finally, hug your neighbor, then the computer assistant, and walk out.

48. Run into the computer lab, shout “Armageddon is here!!!!!”, then calmly sit down and begin to type.

49. Quietly walk into the computer lab with a Black and Decker chainsaw, rev that baby up, and then walk up to the nearest person and say, “Give me that computer or you’ll be feeding my pet crocodile for the next week”.

50. Two words: Tesla Coil.

Ever wanted something so bad it hurt. No matter what it is? A relationship, a promotion at work, being successful with whatever you want to do with your life?

Do you know how far you would go to get what you want? How much you could take, what are you prepared to sacrifice in pursuit of it? The dark side of ambition can be a haunting place to dwell in.

How many times would you have to fail and pick yourself up again to appreciate your prize? How many nights have you dreamt and fantasised how sweet it would be to be living in your ideal future?

Can you feel, smell, taste, see and hear your vision? If you can you are setting into motion a series of unstoppable events to help transcend your desire from the metaphysical world into the physical domain. It’s a beautifully synchronized ballet of cause and effect yielding your innermost wishes.

What if you got what you wanted only to realize that it wasn’t everything that you thought it would be? The old adage of being careful about what you wish for has never resonated with so much truth.

When your wants become your needs you will understand the meaning of desire. Once you infuse these needs into every fiber of your being and attach it to every thought process you will be rewarded with all the power and inspiration you will ever need.

(Wise words stolen from Wesly Jefta, it’s just too good not to share)

All Engineers suffer from this condition, The Knack.

Only people suffering from the The Knack will appreciate the humour in this video clip, enjoy!

How long has amatomu.com been down? I’ve seen on Friday that somebody mentioned it on twitter.com, it’s been two days and still nothing, are they migrating or shutting down or drying their hair as seen in the Google search results?

According to my ping machine, the host is unreachable.

PING www.amatomu.com (196.33.227.230) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 196.14.75.242 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable

— www.amatomu.com ping statistics —
5 packets transmitted, 0 received, +1 errors, 100% packet loss, time 4001ms

(If you’re having DNS problems or need to check whether an URL is working and don’t trust your own ISP’s DNS lookups, this ping machine is exactly what you need, take a look at this topic for more information: http://forums.mycee.net/index.php?topic=836.msg1997)

Speculating at the amount of traffic that site is getting from South Africa, I reckon they are migrating to bigger servers, hope to see them back online soon!!!

I’ve just noticed a new tab in my GMail settings section, it’s a tab called labs where Google is adding experimental features to GMail.

So far I have:

Quick Links Adds a box to the left column that gives you 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail. You can use it for saving frequent searches, important individual messages, and more - definitely a feature I’ll be using, it’s almost like a build in digg for Gmail.

Superstars Adds additional star icons. After enabling this feature, you can choose which icons you wish to use in the “General” Settings page - finally, the boring yellow stars was starting to limit me.

Pictures in chat See your friends’ profile pictures when you chat with them - will give it a shot, actually prefer the minimalistic version of the chat box.

Fixed width font Adds an option to the reply dropdown menu that lets you view a message in fixed width font - this will be great for viewing emails containing ascii art.

Mouse gestures Use your mouse to navigate with gestures. Hold right-click and move the mouse left to go to a previous conversation, move it right to go to the next conversation, and move up to go back to the inbox view. Works best on Windows - never been a fan of mouse gestures.

Signature tweaks Places your signature before the quoted text in a reply, and removes the “–” line that appears before signatures. Can’t use this and the “Random signature” Labs feature at the same time - finally!!!

Random signature Rotates among random quotations for your email signature. Can’t use this and the “Signature tweaks” Labs feature at the same time - no thanks, I prefer my signatures static, boring and clean.

Custom date formats Adds options to the general settings page allowing the date and time format to be changed independent of language. For example, you can use a 24-hour clock (14:57) or show dates with the day first (31/12/07) - at last, this feature is welcome anytime!!!

Muzzle Conserves screen real estate by hiding your friends’ status messages - might turn it on to turn of annoying status messages.

Old Snakey Kick it old school with Old Snakey! Enable keyboard shortcuts and hit ‘&’ from the main page to play a game of snake-procrastination just became a lot easier.

Email Addict Lets you take a break from email and chat by blocking the screen for fifteen minutes and making you invisible in chat - hopefully I’ll get some work done with this feature, haha.

Hide Unread Counts Hides the unread counts for inbox, labels, etc - that’s what I use filters for, if I want email to automatically be marked as read, I’ll rather set it up in a filter.

Let me know if you find any new features, I’ll probably turn most of them on just to test drive drive it and leave the useful features on after beta testing all the existing features.

You can help Firefox set the Guinness World Record for most downloads in 24 hours by taking the pledge and downloading it on the given download day. The date is still unknown but you will be notified when the download day is once you take the pledge. Let’s make the web a better place, pledge to download Firefox 3 on the official download day!!!

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord

Well, got to admit, after playing poker for the first time last night and for a second time today, I can honestly say, this game is addictive, especially when combined with some pizza, some decent quality tequila (Jose Cuervo Gold), good company and high stakes.

To anyone looking to play the game but are intimidated by the complexity, relax, you’ll learn it quickly and before you know it, you’ll discover that you have some talent, not that the game requires much talent, but if you can keep a straight face all the time, you’ll most likely make a killing.

Poker is played with a standard pack of 52 cards. (Some variant games use multiple packs or add a few cards called jokers.) The cards are ranked (from high to low) Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, Ace. (Ace can be high or low, but is usually high).

There are four suits (spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds); however, no suit is higher than another.

The rank of hands remains the same no matter which type of poker game you play.

In a nutshell, a poker hand consists of five cards. Poker hands fall into one of several categories, such as flush, straight, or two pair. The player with the highest ranking hand is the winner.

0) Royal Flush: A royal flush is an ace high straight flush.

1) Straight Flush: A straight flush is a five-card straight, all in the same suit.

2) Four of a Kind - Quads: Quads, or four of a kind, are four cards of equal rank.

3) Full House or Full Boat: A full house, or full boat, contains a set (three) of cards of one rank and a pair of another rank.

4) Flush: A flush is any five cards, all of the same suit.

5) Straight: Five cards of sequential rank. Every possible straight will contain either a 5 or a 10.

6) Three of a Kind or Set: Three cards of the same rank.

7) Two Pair: A two pair is two cards of one rank and another two cards of another rank.

8) Pair: One pair is two cards of the same rank.

9) High Card: The hand with the highest card(s) wins.

The dealer can either be a dedicated dealer, or one of the players in which case the a new dealer is chosen after every round, usually chosen clockwise. The dealer’s job is to hand out cards and take the bets.

We play the game with two cards, not the 5 card one. Before any cards are given to any player, the person next to the dealer must place the minimum bet and the person next to that person, double the minimum bet (it goes clockwise, so that would be the person on the left side of the dealer, assuming the dealer is one of the players) After those two bets have been placed, every player receives two cards which they can use to decide whether they are going to call (which means placing a bet equal to the highest bet), raise (which means upping the highest bet by a certain percentage or fixed amount) or fold (in which case the player decides not to continue the round and forfeit his bets)

Once every player matched the highest bid (or folded if they decide not to take part in the madness of increasing bets), the first three cards are placed on the table (only in the first round that 3 cards are placed on the table at once) after which the next round of betting occurs. Betting continues until the 5th card is placed on the table or only one player remains after everyone folded. The last person remaining after everyone folded, wins. If more than one person remains, the players reveal their cards and the player with the highest rank of hand wins. The winner takes all the accumulated bets.

This should give you a basic idea of how the game works, I’m still a newbie myself, but thought I might as well share the knowledge I learned yesterday. For a more in depth guide on the rules of the game, go to http://www.pokercoach.us

To spice up the game even more, add the jokers and make up some interesting rules for them, one set of rules that can particularity screw with your head, is when one joker is set as an instant win and the other joker as an instant loss, if you get the one joker, you keep everyone in the game as long as possible and when you reveal your joker, you take everything, it’s like winning the jackpot, how much you make is totally up to you. Revealing the other joker means you will lose instantly, the only way to win the game is to bluff until the end and hope everyone folds, whoever has the joker, may not fold until the last round of betting. If the joker happens to land in the cards on the table, they simply acquire whatever value you want them to be, basically a wild card, the way most people use the jokers if they choose to play with them.

Enjoy your poker games, any kind of feedback is welcome, especially if I’m misinterpreting the rules in one way of another.