Category: Friday Fun

The Internet, It’s Just Gone

Now for some Friday fun.

Apparently, in the quiet little white-bred redneck mountain town of South Park, the Internet is gone. It’s just gone.

My favorite quote:

When I get to that Internet, I’m click on just about everything in sight. Might even click on a pop-up ad, just for the heck of it.

Ha! Gotta love Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Check out that hilarious clip or watch the full episode online for free! Gosh, I sure love the Internet. Hope it never goes down for me, I sure don’t know what I wou

Myth: All The Good Domain Names Are Taken

Now for some Friday fun. Can’t find a good domain name? Think all the good domain names are taken? Well, you’re wrong, according to the NYC- and LA-based sketch comedy group Quiet Library.

My personal favorite:

Goooooooooogggllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllek.info

(Think I might have missed some L’s in there…)

Via: Self Made Minds

Ridiculous Small-Business Plan Encouraged By Friends

Now for some Friday fun. This just in from the fabulously accurate and oh-so-informative news source, The Onion:

Due in large part to the encouragement of her so-called friends, 34-year-old Karen Sabin quit her steady job to make and sell homemade gourmet dog biscuits out of her home, the former hospital receptionist told reporters Monday.

It’s a heroic story of a small-town girl finding her entrepreneurial passion with the encouragement of her friends.

Sabin said she arrived at the idea of producing gourmet dog biscuits in May, not through careful market research, but through a discussion with [her friend Angie] Anderton.

Who needs market research when you have friends like Anderton?

In the past three weeks, Sabin has given out nearly 60 dog biscuits and sold almost twice that many, all to friends. By conservative estimates, unless she experiences a 4,000 percent increase in sales, Sabin will be forced out of business before the end of the year.

A 4,000% increase really isn’t that much. It’s like 4%, but with 3 zeroes behind it. When you look at it that way, it’s not so bad.

We all could learn from brave entrepreneurial Sabin here. Got an idea and some encouraging friends? It doesn’t matter if the idea sucks or not. Quit your job and start at it!

Props to: Eric Rodriguez

The Progress Bar in Silicon Valley

Now for some Friday fun. David Friedman of Ironic Sans has proven once more that he’s a font of ideas.

Check this one out. This is just awesome. Pure genius! Gold, Jerry! Gold! (I ripped that off of a commenter.)

I’ve got a name for a bar that doesn’t seem to exist already as far as my Google Search can tell (I’m sure someone will tell me if I’m wrong). This bar would probably best be located in Silicon Valley:

I also liked The Foo Bar and The Space Bar, both also suggestions from commenters. And hmmm, how about The Toolbar? Or The Taskbar? The Scrollbar? Okay, I’ll stop now.

The SEO Rapping Poetic Prophet

Now for some Friday fun. If you work in the web industry and do web design, web development, SEO, affiliate marketing, and/or web standards, you’ve seen this by now. (If not, where have you been?)

Who’s behind this rhyme? Charles (Chuck) Lewis, the Houston, TX guy who’s background is as varied as a spin of the roulette wheel. He’s been rapping since his early teen years at his local church. His style of gospel rap earned him the moniker the Poetic Prophet. After a few false starts, he started a record label called Mo Serious Entertainment to promote himself and some other acts.

Somewhere along the line, he became a Project Coordinator/Marketing Specialist for Pop Labs, where, I’m guessing, he learned about the complicated world of search engines, web standards, and ever-changing web browsers.

One day, inspiration struck him, and he began applying his rapping skills to his new trade. He recorded a handful of YouTube videos that became viral. And now, he’s being mentioned on Valleywag, Compiler from Wired.com, and ShoeMoney.

Looks like his SEO rap has been great for his SEO.

Homemade Restaurant Prank Videos

Now for some Friday fun.

Eric:
I dare you to walk up to a restaurant table and start eating off of someone’s plate.
Me:
How about I give you… fifty bucks to do it?
Eric:
I’ll bet if you had a video camera, you could do with no problem. All you’d have to do is walk up, eat some food, and as soon as they start getting mad, jump out with the camera and tell them they’re on TV. People will let you get away with anything if they think they’re on TV.
Me:
Hey, that’s true.
Eric:
I’ll bet you could even make a business out of it. Go around taking food off of people’s plates and pretending to film it.
Me:
After a few weeks, you might even get a good ROI for your camera.
Eric:
Or you could be really cheap and return the camera at Costco.
Me:
This could be done for all kinds of pranks too. You could go around pretending to sample people’s dishes, drink their wine, all kinds of stuff. It could be made into an ongoing series, or maybe into a funny way to do restaurant reviews, sort of like Yelp, YouTube, and CollegeHumor having a threesome.
Eric:
You should totally do this, man.
Me:
Hmm, where’s the nearest Costco?

Plush Designer Roadkill Toys

Grind the Rabbit Now for some Friday fun. I wish I had seen this before Valentine’s Day. But Easter could do just as nicely.

Need a plush toy to give to that special someone? Special as in “twelve donuts short a pack of dozen” special. Or want a furry & squishy toy for your cubicle, the kind that will get your cubemates to inch their chairs away from you or request transfers?

Why not get a Roadkill Toy!

What’s a Roadkill Toy? It’s a plush stuffed animal resembling, um, roadkill – complete with popped eyeballs, extruded guts, and tire marks. How adorable!

Roadkill Toys The founders of Roadkill Toys describe themselves as avant-garde toy designers “Toy Terrorists”.

We take standard toys and we mess with them. We like toys that don’t take themselves too seriously. Toys with a bit of humour. Toys with a twist.

The founding team is made up of three buddies from a school in the UK (the place where they funny spellings for words, like “colour” and “humour”): Adam Arber, Mike Velcro, and Charlie Bradshaw.

Twitch the Raccoon So far, they have one toy that’s ready for sale: Twitch the Raccoon for £25.00. It’s not just a furry plush toy that you can place next to your ultra-soft Gund bear either. They’ve taken pains to create a “realistic squidgy effect”. Squash-plush, they call it. The outside is made of a special material to give it the “tactile quality of mangy fur” and the guts (or Gut-plush) are made of “stretchy thin material that squidges and bulges under your fingers”. Similar to a Japanese Barbapapa plush toy, apparently.

This kind of attention to quality is admirable. Sick, but admirable. Their next product will be Grind the Rabbit, which they’re aiming to have released for Easter.

The toy business is tough. It’s controlled by trends, marketing, holidays, and the fickle demands of hyperactive kids. Well, except maybe for that last part. Traditionally, toy designers have aimed at children. Now, there’s an increasing number aiming at adults too. Roadkill Toys is one. Uglydolls is another, with, well, ugly dolls. ThinkGeek carries a bunch as well (for the more techie-minded adults). And Happy Worker’s action figures are targeted toward working professionals.

It’s a market that’s clearly growing. And lots of toy designers are clawing for a piece of these consumers. Which makes me wonder: what will this market be called? Adult toys, as opposed to children’s toys? Happy Worker’s founder Kris Schantz gave Entrepreneur Magazine this piece of advice on creating toys for adults: “Don’t call your products ‘adult toys’. We made that mistake the first week. Now we say we make ‘toys for big kids.'” Oh. Ha, oops.

So Easter is coming up! That special someone is really going to appreciate the thought and attention you’ve given toward selecting a very special, quality toy! Whether it be a semi-realistic Squash-plush Twitch the Raccoon, which sold fast back around December, Grind the Rabbit (whenever it will be available), or an Uglydoll or Happy Worker, I’m sure that special someone will enjoy your gift of an adult toy. Er, I mean, toy for big kid.