Category: Random

Smurfs movie trailer

Have you heard that there’s a Smurfs movie in the works?  Yes, all ’80s cartoon franchises are subject to being made into movies.  You can watch the trailer here: SmurfHappens.com.

Honestly, I don’t have high hopes for this movie.  But the involvement of Neil Patrick Harris is promising.

The trailer gives the impression that they’re going to overdo the use of “smurf” as a means-everything word.  If there’s that many in the trailer, how many will there be in the movie?

I find it kinda ironic that one of the Smurfs has a Scottish accent.  Weren’t they all from one location?  Isn’t it odd that one (and possibly only one) of them would have such a different accent?  Oh, wait, I probably shouldn’t try to make this realistic at all.  And I’m certainly not complaining, because I like hearing a Scottish accent.  At least it’ll have that going for it.

Who wouldn’t want a flamethrower?

I have my computer setup to rotate through a certain folder of pictures for my wallpaper, and recently this was the picture:

Click image for a larger version (which makes a great wallpaper).

My wife came in the room, and I pointed to this and said I want one of these for Christmas.  Without missing a beat, she asked, “What would you do with it?”  I figured I shouldn’t get too elaborate (because that might concern her), so I said, “To burn stuff.”  Vague, I know, but women seem to not appreciate things like flamethrowers…  I don’t get it — how could it not be awesome?  There’s no shortage of ideas that would be awesome to try if I had a flamethrower (especially a military-grade flamethrower like the one shown above).

What would you do if you had a flamethrower?

Tour De Donut (The Donut Race)

Speaking of National Doughnut Day, I just learned there is a Tour De Donut event.  You might be thinking it would be a great idea to have a donut-themed race but that this is probably just referencing some person or place named Donut.  That happens sometimes.  But in this case, there actually is a race involving the eating of donuts!

The Tour De Donut is an annual bicycle race held in Staunton, Illinois, plus a few other places.  It’s a 30-mile race, which is a good ways to ride if you aren’t in optimal fitness.  But there’s a unique twist to this race, which somewhat levels the playing field.  There are two pit stops in nearby towns during the race, and your total race time is reduced by five minutes for each donut you consume during those pit stops.

I can put away some donuts, so I could reduce my race time by a significant amount.  However, there is the issue that eating donuts may make you slower.  So you’ve got to strategize about it — if you eat 6 donuts, it saves you 30 minutes, but will it make you 30 minutes slower?  Of course, donuts also provide extra energy (which would be needed for most of us on a 30-mile ride).

I think this race would be fun to do, in the spring or fall.  Having it in the summer would be disoptimal for several reasons.

Obviously the idea can be expanded, too — how about a Tour De Bacon?  Sounds interesting to me!

There’s probably somebody reading this who is thinking something like “this is so unhealthy, I can’t believe you are promoting it!”  Yeah, well, it’s like this — most people are gonna eat donuts and bacon anyway, so if they will get outside and get a couple hours of exercise and fun, it’s better than nothing.  And they might even burn more calories than they consume.  That makes me wonder — how many miles do you have to ride to burn off the calories per bacon strip?  We could come up with a stat to determine the winner (or at least a secondary winner) — miles per bacon.  🙂  Mathematically that wouldn’t be good for eating the most bacon, but we can work on the formula.  I’m just making this up as I go.  🙂

Feel free to continue developing the idea.  As long as it involves eating donuts and/or bacon, count me in!

gaming for bacon

Getting older doesn’t mean you outgrow video games.  But you do outgrow the tickets that come out of games at places like Chuck E. Cheese (or our local Larry’s Pizza).  Most (if not all) of the prizes are worthless to adults.  But imagine if instead of a ticket, you received a similar-sized piece of bacon…

As awesome as that would be, obviously there are some logistical issues with the machines distributing bacon.  So instead the machines could spit out bacon tickets which could be exchanged for actual bacon strips.  And if you were to break the weekly or monthly high school, you could win other prizes like nachos or pizza or milkshakes.  They could also occasionally give out vouchers for more gaming tokens.

Why hasn’t someone done this?  Of course these prizes are more expensive than the stuff you get now, but they would also be increasing the audience by a large factor.  Plus they get food at cost, so it’s not as expensive as you might think.  More adults would play the games, which would mean more revenue, which would also fund the purchase / renting of games that adults would enjoy more.  It’s a win-win situation!  Someone definitely needs to make this happen!