Thanks to Arsian special*dark for posting this on his blog. Here’s the important question at hand:

You are in a mall when the zombies attack. You have:
1. One weapon.
2. One song blasting on the speakers.
3. One famous person to fight alongside you.

Weapon can be real or fictional; you may assume endless ammo if applicable. Person can be real or fictional.

Here’s my reply:

Yay, zombies!

1) Olympic Arms AR-15 pistol.

2) “March of Death” by Zach de la Rocha and DJ Shadow

3) Randy “The Natural” Couture

I looked through my bank check card statement this morning and noticed three odd charges from “Yahoo Voice” this month. Two were within a day of each other, and one was about ten days ago. I called up my bank and they are going to have to cancel my existing card and send me a new one — in about ten days. I use my check card for just about everything, including a number of automated payments such as my gym membership. With luck the card will get here before I need it for anything in particular.

I wonder if this has anything to do with my former employer losing a laptop with my social security number on it last year.

The bank has issued me a temporary credit and it doesn’t look like anything else has been erroneously charged, so hopefully this will be the extent of my troubles.

I upgraded to Firefox 3.0 without finding out if some of my favorite extensions and themes were compatible. As such, I’ve had to live without my favorite theme, Noia Extreme 2.0, ever since FFX 3.0 publicly launched ten days ago.

Luckily the author has been hard at work and a beta version of the theme is available.

Screenshot after the jump:
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I’ve held a concealed carry permit for a dozen years come this August. I have owned a ton of holsters over that time period (see DeSantis Nemesis, Fobus IWB, Fobus E2 Evolution reviews). I have decided there is no one perfect holster for all situations. There is a triangle of comfort, accessibility, and concealment that can never be perfectly balanced. The E2 Evolution holster is king for accessibility and okay for comfort, but not so great on concealment. The Uncle Mike’s nylon belt holster I have for my Glock 27 is super comfortable and has decent accessibility, but if I reach too high with my right hand my piece may show.

I soon realized that concealed carry is a lifestyle as much as it is a means of self-defense. There are certain times that you absolutely, positively do not want anyone to know you are carrying a handgun. It might be for political/social reasons. It might be for work-related reasons. It might be for legal reasons. I bump into the first two on a regular basis. It’s legal for me to carry at work, but against corporate policy. If my piece falls out in the middle of a meeting I’d be fired. I certainly don’t want to lose my job, so what’s a guy to do?

The SmartCarry holster makes a big claim: that their unique holster keeps a weapon concealed and undetectable by anyone. I plunked down about $50 and waited for the postal carrier to arrive.
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The excellent European board game Ticket to Ride is coming to the Xbox 360 today. The game will feature local and online multiplayer. At 800 points the game seems like a must-buy. I hope they will release the other countries/games as expansions.

Thanks to Arsian and 360 gaming buddy Agreschn for the reminder.

Some games are labeled as group games, and some games are REALLY group games. You can have four people in a Cranium game and still have a good time. But there are some games that are only fun with a big group of people — and become even more fun as you pile on more bodies. If you are looking for a game for ten folks or more, Hasbro’s Catch Phrase is about the most fun thing you can do in a group and still keep your clothes on.
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Well maybe not my WORST flying nightmare – that would be a repeat of six infants with inner ear infections screaming for almost seven straight hours – but this is close.

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I have 50,000 applications and whatnot open at any given time. Sometimes I want an application to always stay on top of other applications, especially now that I run two monitors. For example, I remotely connect to my file server and put that window on my second monitor. I also keep my AOL Instant Messenger buddy list on that monitor. My buddy list gets hidden any time I “focus” on the remote desktop window. How could I keep the buddy list on top at all times?

Enter DeskPins. DeskPins is a free Windows application that allows you to “top” any window of any application. I soon found other windows I wanted to keep on top of everything else, like video Skype conversations with Stilts, or Winamp when placed on my secondary display.

The application is easy to use: just click on the DeskPins icon and then click on the title bar of the program you want to pin. You can unpin the program by clicking on the “pin” icon in the title bar. You can also set up rules to pin programs automatically, but I haven’t found the need to do so.

Give DeskPins a try, you might find uses for the application you didn’t imagine.

Edit: I bought the jacket! Please read my review here.

As I have mentioned several times before on Gibberish, motorcycle gear is a compromise between comfort and safety. In general, leather offers the most abrasion resistance compared to textile fabrics (Kevlar, Cordura, etc), which in turn is better than denim or cotton. The problem is that leather is often the least comfortable in the cold or in the rain. Leather gear is also the least “usable” from a day to day perspective. If you compare a typical leather street jacket to a textile “touring” jacket, the touring jacket has tons of pockets and nifty accessories. One of the things I like the most about my Tourmaster Transition 2 jacket is the tiny key pocket. It is a lot easier to grab my keys from there instead of fumbling about in a giant storage pouch.
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This is day one on my trip out to California. I spent some time on the highway and had the chance to watch Californian motorcyclists in action on “the Slab.” I noticed two major and fundamental differences in motorcycle culture between here and Virginia.

The first big difference is that because one is able to ride in California almost year round, people are more aware of motorcyclists out here. People expect to see a cyclopean headlight burning behind them, or a two-wheeled daredevil to their left or right. I’m not saying accidents don’t happen, but there seemed to be more a more “formal” agreement between cyclists and cagers out here.
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