Need a gyrating representation of an Elder God to make your sing-along experience complete?

Dancing Karaoke Cthulhu

Song list:
1999
Always On My Mind
American Woman
Aquarius
Bad Moon Rising
Betty Davis Eyes
Another One Bites the Dust
Bizarre Love Triange
Bohemian Rapsody
California Dreaming
I Think I'm a Clone Now
Come Together
Don't Stand So Close To Me
Eat It
Every Breath You Take
Eye of the Tiger
Fever
Funkytown
Hotel California
I Shot the Sheriff
Johnny B. Good
Knockin On Heaven's Door
La Bamba
Love Me Tender
My Way
Love Potion #9
Puff the Magic Dragon
Purple Haze
Radio Ga Ga
Respect
Riders on the Storm
Satisfaction
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
Stairway to Heaven
Take On Me
Time Warp
With or Without you
Waltzing Matilda
White Wedding
YMCA
Yellow Brick Road
Zombie

Posted by: Harvey at 11:00 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 153 words, total size 1 kb.

One of my blogless friends from high school passed this along to me:

Talking Spanish Inquisitor Plush Doll

Manufactured by ToyVault - who has an extensive "Holy Grail" line, as well - and available at fine on-line stores everywhere (Google "Talking Spanish Inquisitor" to comparison shop).

Warehouse 23 has the best description of the item, but they're currently out of stock.

Posted by: Harvey at 10:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 79 words, total size 1 kb.

Jim of Snooze Button Dreams is posting about dragons, which naturally made me think of...

TROGDOR!

But what's really cool is I found out that Trogdor is now a game.

Go stomp some peasants and burninate the thatched-roof cottages, while trying not to get sworded.

Posted by: Harvey at 09:09 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 47 words, total size 1 kb.

1 that's one of the advantages of having kids, you learn about these things early on.

Posted by: tommy at October 10, 2005 09:13 AM (TWHR8)

2 That's probably one of SB's top ten e-mails, Trogdor. My other favorites are "Japanese Cartoon", "Virus", "Bottom 10", "Caffeine", "Rampage", and "Little Animal". I don't know what the other three are. Gunlord P.S. Have you played the Trogdor game "Peasant's Quest"? It's pretty good. Remember, throw the baby in the lake . And watch the trailer in the Toons section.

Posted by: Gunlord at October 10, 2005 09:17 AM (9it+N)

3 You are a bad, bad man, putting that link in a place where I could find it during work hours. Shame on you. Heh.

Posted by: physics geek at October 10, 2005 09:20 AM (Xvrs7)

4 Stomp peasants? Burn cottages? I am SO there.

Posted by: Ogre at October 10, 2005 10:59 AM (/k+l4)

5 The best StrongBad email in my opinion is "Weird Dream". "Me, I blame the pudding pops." is but the least of the fun stuff in that email.

Posted by: Brian at October 10, 2005 07:05 PM (C2s2C)

6 Holy Crap! I think I may know something my Son does not! I will show him this tomorrow and maybe, just maybe, I'll get the cool Mom award this week.

Posted by: Bou at October 10, 2005 09:40 PM (5JHEt)

7 NOT what I needed!! I've been working on that presentation and remembered this link. Clicked and now I've wasted....way too much time! Bad Harvey. Very bad Harvey. Excuse me - I have to go stomp and burn some more. ;-)

Posted by: Tammi at October 10, 2005 10:20 PM (hgbsg)

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Blogdaughter Sally of Whimsy Capricious says she has trouble keeping enough fluids by her bedside to keep her from getting thirsty at night:

we own hundreds of plastic kid's cups. Glittery Barbie, Little Mermaid, Disney Princess monstrosities...tons of them. The trouble with these cups is that they don't hold much liquid.

May I recommend one of these?

(click to enlarge)

8 inches high, 5 inches diameter, holds about 64 oz of liquid, and has a spill-resistant closable top.

Wait... Sally's English... I need to convert to metric... where's that calculator?...

[spends several minutes longer than necessary playing with calculator]

Oh! The NUMBERS...

About 20 cm high, about 13 diameter, and holds just under 2 liters.

[Hat tips to blogdaughter Boudicca of Boudicca's Voice and Ted of Rocket Jones for the calculator link]

Posted by: Harvey at 08:56 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 112 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Eric and Matt need to see this sippy cup... Seriously.

Posted by: Bou at July 29, 2005 09:43 PM (5JHEt)

2 Whimpy! LittleJoe found one that holds over 100 oz, I had to buy one for myself.

Posted by: Contagion at July 29, 2005 10:12 PM (M8Swz)

3 That is why I love my Grandpappy, always a step ahead, and always thinking of the other guy.

Posted by: ArmyWifeToddlerMom at July 29, 2005 10:15 PM (XCgIJ)

4 LOL! God, people of my generation suck at measurement. We were taught metric at school, yet the real world still used imperial till long after we had grown up. Now I'm just totally confused by either! And, yes, I can't park ;-) Thanks, Harvey.

Posted by: Sally at July 30, 2005 05:52 AM (Q5UbG)

5 These were great in college for having alcohol in the dorms with out the dorm nazi noticing!

Posted by: Sissy at July 30, 2005 08:25 AM (z5XSP)

6 Contagion - is this going to devolve into one of those "mine's bigger" arguments? :-D

Posted by: Harvey at July 30, 2005 02:44 PM (ubhj8)

7 Don't want that to happen to Herbey... he always ends up a little short on one end, if you know what I mean....

Posted by: Madfish Willie at July 30, 2005 03:36 PM (ikJsr)

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7 is easy. 8 is hard.

Just don't put anything in the corner squares and you'll figure it out a lot faster.

And remember, there's a reason the knight is called a "queen-zapper".

[Hat tip: Jed of Boots & Sabers]

Posted by: Harvey at 08:47 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 57 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Damn you! I had stuff to do today!

Posted by: Ogre at July 13, 2005 09:25 AM (/k+l4)

2 that isn't too hard at all. I got it pretty quickly. but who's bragging

Posted by: Mustang 23 at July 13, 2005 09:50 AM (WsyQC)

3 That's easy! Just place a super hot guy next to each one and they will forget about each other. What? Oh, not *that* kind of Queen. Sorry

Posted by: Machelle at July 13, 2005 10:37 AM (ZAyoW)

4 yeah - turns out i used to be a chess geek back in the day and happened to remember the keys to this one. go figure.

Posted by: Patriot Xeno at July 13, 2005 02:08 PM (SXM2F)

5 There are 92 non-isotropic solutions to the 8 queens problem. It's a classic recursion exercise for young students of computer science. The "knight's tour" -- from an arbitrary starting point, make a knight visit every square on the chessboard once, no repeated visits -- is another such.

Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at July 15, 2005 03:11 PM (MzH7h)

6 PHWEEEET! I've got a "too many big words" penalty on Francis. The ball will be moved back 15 yards from the spot of the foul. Still second down. PLAY BLOG!

Posted by: Harvey at July 15, 2005 03:18 PM (ubhj8)

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Tossing wads of virtual paper into a virtual trash can.

[Hat tip to Jed of Boots & Sabers]

Posted by: Harvey at 08:20 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 16 words, total size 1 kb.

A tiny, optical, 3-button USB wheelmouse, with a retractable cord for easy storage.

Blogson GEBIV of There's One, Only! has a post about it with a nice picture, and check the comments for details on the functionality.

You can get one at Amazon for $17.00

UPDATE 4-28-05: Jim of Snooze Button Dreams says $10 at America's Favorite Corporate Whipping Boy

Posted by: Harvey at 01:26 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 78 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Very cool - I may have to get one. *grin*

Posted by: Teresa at April 27, 2005 02:00 PM (nAfYo)

2 Bet you wished you got this instead of flowers.

Posted by: Contagion at April 27, 2005 02:05 PM (Q5WxB)

3 Doh! I payed 19.95 at Office Max. No shipping and handling though. Plus I got to play with use it as soon as I got home. :-D

Posted by: GEBIV at April 27, 2005 02:14 PM (qnNu4)

4 Only $10 at Mega-Lo Mart. Lovely Wife got one of these last year and has been totally in love with it.

Posted by: Jim at April 28, 2005 10:19 AM (tyQ8y)

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Bloggranddaughter SarahP of Because We Have Thumbs says radio sucks and explains why

The truth is that radio stations don't do anything without pissing away hundreds of thousands of dollars on at least 3 surveys and hiring some guy to spend weeks pouring over the results of those surveys.

So they have every reason to think that you should love what they are doing. That is what the surveys and experts told them.

They were told to 1. play the same songs over and over again. 2. Sound as much like everyone else as they can. 3. play bands you hate instead of bands you love.

Now ask yourself: when is the last time you took the time to respond to a survey?

What to do about it, she doesn't say.

That's ok, because *I* will.

Thanks to _Jon of We Swear, I found out that Yahoo's LaunchCast fixes the problem.

Click the freakin' link already.

Scroll down to where it says "Create my station". Click that, get all signed in, and now you can start making your radio station the way YOU want it.

It plays complete songs. For free. You get to rate them on a 4 star scale as to how much you like them, and YOU CAN ALSO CHOOSE "NEVER PLAY AGAIN!".

It starts off fairly randomly, but as you rate more songs, it starts getting a feel for what you like, and selecting stuff you like better.

But even when it sends you a clunker, YOU CAN CLICK THE SKIP BUTTON and move on to something else.

The catch? Boring, annoying commercials. About 1 minute's worth every 10-15 minutes. Which is still a LOT less annoying than commercial radio.

However - as they never tire of reminding you - you can ditch the commercials for a year for $36 (or do it monthly for $3.99). I did the year thing after about 24 hours, and I'm in music-junkie heaven right now.

Did I mention you can pause the songs, too? Not indefinitely, but for a few minutes at least if you need to go feed the dogs or something.

Also, you rate (and possibly ban) separately on the basis of song, artist, or album. Also, you can click on the song title to find similar songs. You can click on the artist and find similar artists (there's also an "albums" link there where you can find the band's entire discography and rate that - hint: rate something a 4, and they'll play something from it pretty soon). Click on the album link and you can rate every song on that album, as well as find similar albums.

Doesn't matter what kind of music you like. They have it, and you can train your personal radio station to play it.

Just check it out.

Meanwhile, one of you Ubergeeks can explain how I can capture these songs. Figure if they're coming out of my speakers, there's gotta be a way to catch 'em.

Posted by: Harvey at 10:43 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 513 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Welcome to Launch Harvey, Im a Launch ratings addict over 5000 songs rated. another cool thing is you can create multiple stations and Moods ie a work out mood or a sunday am station. Launch is also a good way for us older folks to hear some new music. and for someone with such a large blog family you can also listen to other peoples stations Welcome aboard GBfan

Posted by: gbfan001 at March 14, 2005 06:20 AM (oSAou)

2 Wow, welcome to Launch Harvey! I've had my station running since...well...since my PI days. Stop on over at Ramblings and click on the station shortcut to take a listen! My Marines would throw the station on a PC and stream it at 3:00AM while we were making hundreds of stupid fiber patch cables! Heck, remember the good ol' days when it was still Broadcast.com?! You could find any radio station anywhere and listen to it online. Stupid FCC and their stupid "unfair advertising" ruling. Feh!

Posted by: Silent Warrior at March 14, 2005 08:22 AM (f8kXi)

3 Virgin also has a free radio station and I like it alot more than yahoolaunch. You can also buy the upgraded version from Virgin also. Launch has to many restrictions for free use, limited songs, commericals (virgin doesn't have commericals), limited number of times you can skip per month, it will still play "never play again" songs. blech I heart Virgin

Posted by: Machelle at March 14, 2005 08:53 AM (ZAyoW)

4 I use Launch every once in a while, but it never works with Mozilla for me. I always have to run IE to get it to work.

Posted by: GEBIV at March 14, 2005 05:08 PM (S0N3t)

5 And to catch the songs, you need an oven mitt, a goalie mask, one of those Umpire chest protectors, and a tape-recorder. Set the tape-recorder next to your computer speakers and press 'record'. Then put on all of the other stuff, so when you are arrested for piracy, you can use the 'insanity' plea.

Posted by: GEBIV at March 14, 2005 05:27 PM (S0N3t)

6 Lovin' the Launch - since about 2 or 3 years ago actually. I just upgraded to Launchcast plus today and I only did it because I had reached my limit of use of my free customized station. Bah.

Posted by: songstress7 at March 14, 2005 06:02 PM (jEGU/)

7 Machelle - what's this Virgin thing? Maybe you should post about it...

Posted by: Harvey at March 14, 2005 06:42 PM (ubhj8)

8 ... ...I ...uh... well, ok. But it's not the same as having a real live DJ to be your portable friend. I feel so unwanted now.

Posted by: Sarah the penguin at March 15, 2005 03:38 PM (UFED1)

9 I'd rather have a portable DJ. Especially if she has a nice, grabbable ass ;-)

Posted by: Harvey at March 16, 2005 07:39 PM (ubhj8)

10 been on a few years myself... 4,300 ratings or so... almost at fanatic lol I just upgraded to plus a few weeks ago myself, curious if any others who upgraded to plus after many songs noticed that before upgrading it played alot less of the stone age radio songs, and now plays alot more "money" songs? I like that it was like this actually, its amazing at how much this will widen your musical tastes, and find some of you favorite songs you never knew existed! and to the dj who posted.. dont worry... as long as launchcast doesnt go to the sirius and other sattelite radio extreme(all of which bite ass in my opinion) dj's will still have their wages paid by the blaring of many annoying ads into my "refuse to be trendy and buy something because the radio tells me to" ears. but wait.. oh yeah.. I would buy that in an instant! lol good programs like this are helping to curb the music piracy issue, since I have found launchcast there is no way I would waste my time or stick my neck out, for a measley couple of bucks a month its well worth it! (and no.. I dont work for yahoo... just ehjoy humping this programs leg lol)

Posted by: NanooX2 at June 08, 2005 10:20 PM (IK5Cc)

11 I've been on Launchcast for over 5 years. It's a great service. A couple of tips: (1) You can pause a song for up to a couple of hours if you want to/need to. (2) You can rate on a 1-100 scale instead of on the 4-star scale. This lets you fine tune your ratings. It's an option in your profile settings. Otherwise, 1-star equates to 30 points, 2-stars = 50 points, 3-stars = 70 points, and 4-stars = 90 points. (3) The current algorithm won't play anything under 40 points, so if you rate something 1-star, that's essentially the same as X.

Posted by: Richard at September 13, 2005 12:23 AM (03ZSD)

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