Weekly Update.

– Boxing: The Juan Manuel Marquez vs Michael Katsidis fight is worth watching if you see the replay on HBO or OnDemand.  Marquez gets dropped in the 3rd, but steadily beatsdown Katsidis until the ref (my boy Kenny Bayless!) stops it in the 9th.  Some experts think it’s the fight of the year.  On that undercard, Andre Berto knocks out Freddy Hernandez in the first round.  Solid punch.

– Mythbusters: If you are in a car and it hits the water and then turns over, you are fucked.  In order to open a door, you’ll need to wait until the car is filled with water.  Adam Savage recommends keeping a glass-breaker in your car.  Also, a gun will not ignite a kitchen full of methane gas, but it will blow the fuck out of a kitchen full of hydrogen.

– Weed map: Here’s a map showing the average price of weed by state.  It’s interactive.  It’s also based on anonymous submitters, who may or may not be lying.  Or just high.  (Wooten)

– Slo-mo: A camera at 210fps shoots from a train pulling into the station.  Then the footage gets played back at 30fps and you get this:  (The Daily What)

– We’re still cavemen: Apparently just looking at a cooked turkey “may promote caveman behavioral traits.”  The original theory was that we’d act more aggressively if we viewed pictures of meat.  To wit:

“I theorized that meat would elicit an aggressive response because it would be beneficial to our ancestor’s adaptation in that it would place our ancestors in a state optimal for hunting and co-opting meat resources, where aggression would be necessary,” project leader Frank Kachanoff told Discovery News.

“Fruits and vegetables would probably not require as much aggressive force to be acquired,” added Kachanoff, a McGill Department of Psychology researcher.

And what did he find after running experiments?  The exact opposite.  Subjects were more likely to be calmer after seeing picture of meat than after seeing pictures of geometric shapes.  Of course, Kachanoff can’t let it go that his theory was wrong.  The end of the article goes like this:

In the future, Kachanoff plans to rework his meat experiment by showing participants pictures of live animals most likely to have been hunted by our ancestors.

“Also, it would be interesting to have a condition in which the animal’s carcass would be shown,” he said. “I would predict that these conditions would elicit an aggressive response in participants relative to neutral stimuli.”

All in the name of science, I suppose.  (Discovery)

– Porn: 3-D porn channel is indeed hitting France.  It has 60 exclusive videos from director Mark Dorcel (you can check his IMDB page here), plus it’s OnDemand.  Us in the states will have to settle for Playboy’s 250GB hard drive, which includes every issue of the magazine.  (Gizmodo)

– Polar Ice: Spend about $33 on some ice.  You’re supposed to “preserve” it in your freezer.  I like to keep mine around my neck.  There’s a great over-the-top video on MyPolarIce.com, where it explains that the two artists went to the Arctic to do something about the “soon to be extinct” ice caps… by removing one.  (Core77)

– Speaking of global warming: Climate scientists met in Cancun (it’s OK, they all biked there) to discuss climate change.  Professor Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, had a brilliant idea.  He wants to ration, especially in the rich countries:

“The Second World War and the concept of rationing is something we need to seriously consider if we are to address the scale of the problem we face,” he said.

He then follows that statement with this one: “I am not saying we have to go back to living in caves,” he said. “Our emissions were a lot less ten years ago and we got by OK then.”  I love when they gloss over the fact the “rich” countries they want to attack are the ones lowering their carbon output per capita.  OK, now everyone line up for their gallons of gasoline this week.  I don’t care if you live in farm country and drive 50 miles just to get to the store, you’ll get the same as everyone else.  (Dad)

– Sun tax: A Spanish woman has claimed ownership of the Sun and wants to charge us usage fees. (Google News)

– It’s not a wiki: “A wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor,” at least according to Wikipedia.  That’s why I don’t understand why that douche calls it Wikileaks.  Anyway, Not-A-Wikileaks had some big news for you all.  The people we’ve asked to go to other countries and report back on what is going on have been reporting back on what is going on.  Shocker.  Here are “The Top 5 Most Shocking Things About The [Not-a-]Wikileaks“:

1. Nearly every country in the Middle East wants us to attack Iran.
2. State Department officials ordered U.S. diplomats to spy on their foreign and UN counterparts.
3. North Korea supplied Iran with long-range missiles.
4. Iran used the auspices of the Red Crescent to smuggle spies and weapons into war zones.
5. U.S. foreign policy relies heavily on blog-ready gossip items.

So Iran is crazy and our diplomats are supposed to tell us what they’ve seen?  And this helps our foreign relations how, exactly?  I have no problem if they want to reveal a more accurate body count, but I have a huge problem with something so unworthy yet so damning getting released.  (There are some funny “gossip” items in the documents, though.)

– Whaddup Big Worm: Here’s a fantastic rundown of the computer virus that fucked over (is still fucking over?) Iran’s nuclear development.  Somehow someone planted a virus on computers that aren’t even connected to the Internet.  The virus specifically fucked with the centrifuges to make them spin too fast, but also changed the data so computer tests didn’t know the centrifuges spun too fast.  This has delayed Iran’s progress for over a year now.  Definitely worth the read.  It’s like a spy thriller, but for 2010.  (Dad)

– Jean Claude: Here’s Jean Claude Van Damme in Hard Target, except his motorcycle has been replaced:  (Montague)

– Chris Johnson’s clothing line: If you like this shirt:

You can go here to find other apparel to buy.  Considering Chris Johnson was the worst first pick in Moonti League history since Duante Culpepper, I will not be buying one.  If I somehow sneak into the Moonti playoffs and some good things happen, then perhaps I’ll be buying a shirt… or two.  (Chris Johnson’s Twitter)

– Stevie vs DeSean: One of my favorite things to do this year has been to send Mark Lee some of DeSean Jackson’s tweets.  Like this one:

MY FEET KICCED UP ON THIS PLANE … BOSS’D UP

Or this one:

#inhighschool MY SQUAD WAS JERK’n THA MOST… ALL THE FEMALES KNEW WAT WAS UP”” yeeeeeeah buddy

Maybe it’s just the way receivers write.  Here’s Stevie Johnson after dropping an easy touchdown in overtime:

I PLAY W/PASSION AND EMOTION! I HURT WEN I DNT MAKE A PLAY BKUZ iKNO THAT’S WHA MY TEAM,FAM,N MY CITIES WANT TO SEE! N THAS A WINs N PLAYS!

Even Jeff Palma is cringing.

– “You think this is funny?”: I can, in part, sympathize with Derek Anderson laughing on the sidelines during a blowout.  I once got indirectly yelled at in a locker room for the same thing.  Of course, that was high school and I wasn’t playing anyway.  I don’t remember what Pat O’Keefe and I were joking about, but as one assistant coach was screaming trying to figure out who it was, I subtly let Pat know not to say a fucking word.  However, I don’t think I sympathize with Anderson’s reaction during the press conference:

“That’s fine.  That’s fine.  That’s fine.”  And I’m out.  (Kissing Suzy Kolber)

– “I say more naked chicks”: Here, Andy.  Here:  (Fuck Yeah Brazilian Girls)

Her name is Mariana Kupfer

And since I don’t discriminate, this is Juliana Alves:

– The Marks’ Financial Update:

• MFL – A steady rise from $12.61 to close out the two-week period at $13.61.  A solid $1 gain for a guy who usually deals in cents.  Fantasy playoffs are approaching, so he has to like the recent movement of his stock here.
  
• MDH – Harter dropped two cents this time period, from $2.41 to $2.39.  He doesn’t quite have first place sewn up in the Moonti league (he needs to get by yours truly), but he does have the best record.  I’m hoping he pulls a Colts and rests his starters.  My dad wanted me to ask him to start Chatham’s QB and RB.  So, um, Harter, can you?
• MAB – A visit back to C-Town couldn’t stop Bunk’s slide from $14.60 to $14.03.  He spent 5 trading days below $14, but snapped out of it on Friday, so maybe it was the visit that helped.  Is it bad that I almost called him and Jaime “Junk”, ya know, because that’s what Jaime and Bunk would equal, if we were to give them a Bennifer moniker.  I’ll stop now.  Baime it is.  I’ll stop now, now.

– Notes on the site: So this is the 52nd Weekly Update.  How about that.  I first posted on this site on November 30th, 2009.  I really didn’t mean to post exactly one year from then, my laziness just made it so.  I’ve decided to share with you the first ever “Blake’s Update” that I sent via email to The Marks.  I have not edited the email nor checked to see if the links work.  I just copy/pasted.  How far I’ve come.  Enjoy:

You said you wanted updates on shit, so this is what I learned this week:

– Disposable diapers can hold up to 7 pounds of liquid, which lead me to think about being a “Man-baby” for Halloween, which in turn became “Man-baby Edward 40-Hands”.
– New website of the week: http://atdhe.net/ You can watch live TV, so if you aren’t getting a football game, it might show there.  Definitely worth checking.
– DJ Hero came out (you probably saw the commercial) but I saw it at Best Buy and asked one of the workers about it:
“Man… I’m sick of that game already.”
“People buying it though?”
“Oh hell yeah, people are playing it a lot and then buying it.”
What he was sick about is that each song is a mash up and you’re supposed to hit that slide thing to the right/left but no one playing it for the first time can figure it out.  Next time you see the Eminem/Jay-Z commercial, imagine listening to that commercial with no sound when Jay-Z comes on.
Images here: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=dj+hero&FORM=BIFD

– Dorkiest thing: Xerox is finalizing research to print circuit boards. http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009/10/26/xerox-developers-a-silver-ink-that-can-be-used-to-wearable-or-throwaway-electronics/
“Xerox researchers have invented a kind of ink that can conduct electricity and be used to put electronic circuits on top of plastics, film, and textiles. That means in the coming years we’ll be able to wear or bend our electronics. You could even print out your electronic gadget on plastic sheets, as if you were printing a document.”

Google Reader – if you still haven’t tried this, I recommend checking it out.  Again, it works on something called a RSS Feed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss_feed).  You can add feeds from Reader, or go to the site you want and look for “RSS Feed” (usually an orange button shown on the Wiki page)

Twitter – Blake’s up to 11 followers.  No mentions this week nor RTs (re-tweet, lol! omg!!).  Twitter has a
– New “Listing” function which I found is reducing clutter but only works on the web.
– Echofon is the iphone app to go with (since Samsung flip phones are way more ballin’ than an iphone, no apps necessary).
Look – yes for a massive majority of users, Twitter is basically a message board for 13 year old girls.  Fine.  But when you can find the right people to follow, you find out news before articles are posted and have some good laughs.  Just saying.

Oh – and I witnessed my first Twitter-war.  Andre Berto and Sugar Shane Mosley went at it.  Berto said Shane talked shit about him in some interview, Shane said he was ready to fight Jan 30th but Berto hasn’t signed.  Berto said Shane’s an idiot and no one’s ever contacted him to fight.  Maybe they ink something, who knows.

MAB – Buyers were excited that Bunk hosted a weekend of debauchery, but quickly sold when news broke that the daybed (aah-ah-ahhhh) was no more.  Started the week around 13, got as 15.83, then dropped down and closed the week at $14.10:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MAB#chart4:symbol=mab;range=5d;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

MFL – $12.99 open, $12.84 close for the week.  Nothing could be more boring (except maybe this email).  In a week where the market tanked at the end, he at least didn’t crash.  Probably would have done better if he didn’t shank every drive on the golf course Saturday.  At least he’s still climbing from his Oct 17th low:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=mfl#chart1:symbol=mfl;range=3m;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

MDH – Harter can’t seem to stop the slide that started in the beginning of October.  You can see from the chart he’s stopped his slides before, and I think it’s safe to say he’ll stop this one.  It starts with the Moonti league and goes from there:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=mdh#chart5:symbol=mdh;range=3m;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

What we missed: “The League” started on Thursday after Always Sunny.  Come on, one of the promos showed two guys using real life in a trade (taking 5yrs for his client and giving up the #1 pick).  False.  No real life scenarios get factored into trades.  Come on.
What you missed: Heroes is making the Cheerleader gay.  I think… it seems they’re gonna lean that way since her college roommate is a lesbo and trying to get with her.
What I missed: Come on, I miss nothing.  Unless it was on Facebook, then I always miss it.

If you want this thing to continue, let me know.  If you want something added, tell me.  Time to get fucked up though, so here’s the Tweet of the week and it comes from Danny DeVito (danny_devito):
“Mischief night! Bitches stay safe . Get with your main squeeze. No drinking and driving. Drinking yes. Driving yes. Drinking & Driving NO!!!”

– blake

(Follow up: They never responded to the “if you want this thing to continue, let me know” part.  I just kept sending it.  Thanks to everyone who reads this, I really do enjoy putting this shit together.)