Beat My High Score: Kick Rider

I don't know what it is, but something about this game makes me totally strap on my bastard pants. I REALLY LIKE THIS GAME, and I'm not even sure I'm playing it right. I get on that bike and I just kick everything. All of it, ever. It is all ripe for the kicking. I kick the other motorcyclists. I kick over the tandem bikers apparently out for a stroll on a racing strip for some reason. I tried kicking the cars and trucks, but they kept knocking me over until I reluctantly stopped. I find myself crashing and flying over embankments because I'm so focused on the kicking I have no attention left for riding.



Last time I played it, it froze on the following win screen. It probably wasn't supposed to do that, but it was the only thing that would stop my kicking rampage.



Current High Score: 63146 at Kick Rider

A Cartoon Character I'm Starting To Hate Worse Than Scrappy Doo.

You know that sinking feeling you get when you know things have just went really wrong? I can't even look at this guy without feeling that.

Not going to give any direct reference to the site this guy is from, but if you've seen him you know exactly what I'm talking about. When your browser goes all green and you're constantly redirected to his site, you know you've caught that particularly nasty bit of malware that's been going around a lot lately, the one that pretends it's an anti-virus program while disabling your real anti-virus programs.

Damnit, I can't even look at his irresistably punchable face. The browser goes green, and everything inside my skull goes red.

I hate you and everything you stand for, fake anti-virus malware website mascot. Please to go away somewhere and die very painfully.

Maximize Your Score At Google Pac Man.

Couple of hints I've discovered if you want to squeeze in a last minute high score on Google Pac Man:

1) If you right click within the game play box, it pauses the game. Take a quick smoke break or whatever.

2) The ghosts don't behave traditionally when you get a power pellet. Instead of running away from you, they simply reverse direction. Timed right you can get the vulnerable blue ghosts to run right to ya.

3) A good place to do trick number 2 is while camped out in the letter "G". That one extra power pellet really makes some stellar scores possible.

I'd love for you guys to post links in the comments to screenshots you've taken of awesome Google Pac Man scores!

Admin Edit: Looks like Google Pac Man is a permanent feature. Rack up some high scores, guys!

In Which Ralf23 Is A Creepy Internet Stalker, And Invites You To Be, Too.

So recently, the website Openbook came to my attention. It's a search engine specifically for Facebook status updates. It's motto "Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life. Whether you want to or not." invokes an ominous tone, so I guess it's supposed to be making a statement about online privacy or something. But then, I've never been quite sure how private people really wanted or expected Facebook status updates and other forms of Twitter-esque microblogging to be. In any case, I'm pretty much on the fence on whether this thing is really creepy, or just kinda creepy in an an obtuse, indirect way.

In the interest of journalistic integrity, I decided to spy on myself first, and compare notes with the rest of the Facebook community regarding opinions on that new Windows 7 commercial (where they included an overdubbed and re-appropriated version of the "Zombie Vs. Shark" viral video). I'm not particularly reassured by my findings.

For entertainment purposes, I've plugged in searches for favorite Dorkstuff topics (mostly vintage computers/games) and got a surprising number of relevant hits for many of them. I was actually trying to see how obscure I could get with a couple of them, but apparently people still dig 8-bit stuff on Facebook. Check it out:

23 Enigma (Hey, there's me again!)
Apple ][e, ][c, ][gs
Atari 2600
Castlevania
Clash At Demonhead
Commodore 64 (and related search "C64")
Rankin-Bass
Ren And Stimpy
River City Ransom
Sinclair ZX Spectrum
TRS-80
Turbografx 16

Instructional Videos Of All 40 Drum Rudiments.

Over at Freedrumlessons.com, they offer short demonstration vids of all 40 international drum rudiments. You can also check out their Youtube channel, if you want to skip the written theory part and just watch the videos.