No, not me silly. The “you’ve got mail” guy.

So, apparently, if you download the original AOL “you’ve got mail” sound file (available here) and reverse it (you can do with with Windows Sound Recorder) it says, “I am ugly.”

I tried it myself. I can hear it, but it’s not great.

Seriously, some people have too much time on their hands to find stuff like this!

Source: Cash Cab

Dad’s in town, so it’s a home improvement-palooza this week (hence the lack of posts- Tom, I expect you to pick up the slack for me.)

One of the projects was a preventative replacement of an aged water heater. It went surprisingly well.

There are really only a few things to do: Hook up the cold water pipe, Hook up the hot water pipe, Hook up the Electricity, and Hook up the Drain Pipe.

Fortunately, the replacement was more or less the same size as the old one, and we were able to reuse most of the old connections. The biggest problem we had was draining the old heater, which had so much sediment built up in the drain pipe that the water wouldn’t come out.

With that much sediment (and more rust than I’m comfortable with), I think we dodged a bullet on this one.

Total Time (including an extra trip to Home Depot for some copper pipe and a soldering kit and draining the old unit) was about 4 hours.

I knew that American Idol season 3 finalist John Stevens rode Conan O’Brien’s coat-tails by being a look-alike, but I had no idea that President of Finland, Tarja Halonen, had the patented Conan look. Freaky.

Source: Cash Cab

Kim Kardashian (much like Paris Hilton) is a fake celebrity, best known (much like Paris Hilton) for a sex-scandal tape. And she lives in a media vacuum.

I know this because clearly anyone who has had any media contact last 2 weeks has heard of the wildly publicized Travis the chimpanzee attack. And anyone who heard that story would know not to get a chimpanzee as a pet. But that didn’t stop K.K. and family.

I don’t know what’s more likely to follow. A Kardashian/chimpanzee mauling tape, or a Kardashian/chimpanzee sex tape.

One of the most confusing images from childhood is that of a Saint Bernard with the little barrel around its neck. (It was a staple in old tyme cartoons.)

Eventually, your parents would explain that the Saint Bernard was from Switzerland, where giant dogs roam around the Alps with booze in their barrels looking for stranded travelers. The booze, the story goes, warms up the travelers and saves their lives.

Well, thanks to those glorious bastards at Mythbusters another good story bites the dust.

It turns out that drinking booze can actually lower your core temp, speeding up the freezing-to-death process.

So, if you’re stranded in the Swiss Alps and get found by a Saint Bernard with a barrel around its neck, don’t drink from it. If, however, you are at a party with someone wearing this Saint Bernard costume, you may drink from the barrel- at your own risk. I’d still probably recommend against it.

Source: Second-hand description of a Mythbusters Episode

Wow, did that guy have any redeeming qualities? Well, I guess he did give a good speech.

Anyway, Hitler had a habit of biting his nails at the table, gorging on cakes, and ignoring dinner guests. Oh, the humanity!

Not it apparently. Both NASA and the Russian Space Agency claim that there has been no orbital human hanky panky.

But, a couple of fish did get it on. They had little fish babies, and everything was cool.

The rats, however, had some issues. Rat babies conceived and born in space have developed serious developmental impairments. The lack of gravity seems to wreak havoc on the whole mammalian gestation process.

This doesn’t bode well for the propagation of the human species across the galaxy. But this does.

Source: The History Channel

Andrew Aitken “Andy” Rooney’s birthday was about a month ago (Jan. 14). He is 90 years old, and still kickin’ it.

He was a reporter for Stars and Stripes in WWII. He covered the real life incident used in Steven Spielberg’s “The Mission” episode of Amazing Stories (1985). The lower turret gunner of a B-17 is stuck in the ball (ventral) turret as the plane comes in for a belly (without wheels) landing. In real life, the ball gunner was killed on landing.

He was suspended from 60 Minutes in 1990 for stating:

…too much alcohol, too much food, drugs, homosexual unions, cigarettes [are]
all known to lead… to premature death.

The gays didn’t like that. His suspension was supposed to be for 3 months, but after a 4 week/20% decrease in 60 Minutes audience while he was out, he was returned to the show early.

Playgirl editors put him on a 2004 online ballot of sexiest TV newsmen.

In related news, Playgirl editors either have a sick sense of humor, or terrible taste.

Source: Wiki and IMDB.

Five. Five dollar. Five dollar not-even-a-good-deal!!!

The B.M.T. in Subway’s Italian B.M.T. stands for Biggest, Meatiest, Tastiest (LAME name). In the early days of SUBWAY® restaurants, it was a promotion that was based on the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit system in New York City that went along with the subway theme.

Source: Lemm told me this around Halloween time, but had his facts wrong. I found the answer here, and followed the link to here.

The Wife^® and I are finally within striking distance of having our house fully put together after the not-all-that-recent-anymore move.

With the addition of the defective Ikea bookshelf there are just a few minor things remaining. One of those is hanging pictures in my office.

When I left Macy’s I was able to guilt a guy into giving me a really cool old photo of the Marshall Field’s department store in downtown Chicago from around the WWII era.

So this morning I was looking for a companion photo of the downtown Minneapolis Dayton’s store.

It turns out that the Minnesota Historical Society has a really cool online database of historical photographs, and they will sell you prints for a reasonable price. Jackpot! Now I just have to figure out which one of the few hundred Dayton’s photos to use.

There were way too many to go through in one sitting, so I haven’t picked a favorite yet. But this one, of a fashion show at the State Theater in 1920 is one of the best.

If you’re still in MN, I recommend a visit to the Historical Society’s library as a fun Saturday activity, if you’re into that whole history thing.