Kremer’s Stuff

Netflix Problems, No Problem For Me

I love Netflix.  Joined up a couple of years ago and have had flawless service since then.  Great way of keeping track of what movies you want to watch…and they just appear in your mail box.  How easy. 

Their shipping system has been down a couple of days apparently due to a botched database upgrade.  Oh well, that happens to most if not all tech companies. I am willing to give Netflix a break.  I just sent back “Harold and Kumar 2″ (Really bad) and “In Bruges” (Good, but strange) and am looking forward to my next movies…whenever they get here.  If it was the dead of winter I might be more upset not to have a DVD to watch this weekend.  But come on it’s August.  Turn off your friggin’ TV and enjoy the great outdoors.  If anyone from Netflix is reading this, hang in there.  You rock.

Mini Cooper Uses Microsoft Logo As Curse

People who reviewed JokeWallpaper over the years often said that I “bashed” Microsoft.  Well…I did, but I also made fun of Apple, Intel, and other tech. companies.  I wasn’t the only Web site that did, but usually it was the small guys like me and not any large companies and certainly not a car manufacturer.

I’ve been doing some online car shopping and visited the Web site for Mini Cooper, which is a division of the giant BMW car company.  On the site they have several animated features that show the benefits of the small 12 foot long Mini including how easy it is to parallel park the car.  One animation begins with a large car trying to fit into a parking spot and ends with the smaller Mini fitting in.  When the larger car is trying to fit in the parking spot the driver crashes into the truck behind them.  A cartoon bubble pops up with the expletive curse words thoughts of the driver.  I would expect the usual cartoon #@&**! type representation, but was surprised to see the Microsoft Windows logo as part of the curse words uttered by the driver.  Look closely, it’s the fourth character from the left.  Interesting. Does the Mini artist have it in for Windows?  Or are they a dedicated Apple user.  Does Mini USA not like Windows?

Here’s a link to the full screen capture of the page.

Here’s a link to the animation on Mini USA Web site. It’s really quick so watch carefully.

Swiss Army Knife - Gotta love ‘em

What does Fidel Castro and George Bush, Sr. have in common? Swiss Army Knives. I love Swiss Army Knives. I have a collection of ‘em and carry a small one with a built in flashlight & pen on my keychain. From Wired.com’s Gadget Blog here’s a gallery of Swiss Army Knife stories and pictures.  

History of JokeWallpaper circa 1995

At the bottom of the original JokeWallpaper page it says “JokeWallpaper.com established September 10, 1995″.  That was the day I created the first “joke” graphic: “Microsoft: Where Do You Want To Go Today? Wherever Mr. Gates Wants Us To.”  At that time I was a TV newscast Producer/Director at WISH-TV in Indianapolis.  Reporter Ray Rice did a feature story about me and the site.  Remember this is 13 years ago when the whole idea of a “Home page” and “the Web” were brand new.  Here’s the video:

Here are some of the links mentioned in the story:

The Flaming Mac

“Microsoft: Where Do You Want To Go Today? Wherever Mr. Gates Wants Us To.”

“It’s now safe to turn off your brain.”

Flash forward to 1998. Dick Wolfsie of WISH-TV’s Daybreak morning show interviews me about JokeWallpaper. Here’s the video:

Creative Business Cards

Great blog post with pictures of creative ideas for business cards.  The one on the left is for a lawn service company with grass seeds and on the right a divorce lawyer with a card that splits in two.  Here’s the full collection.

Summer Jobs - Shark! Shark!

School is letting out for the summer vacation all around the US. Back in the late 90’s I wrote a series of articles on JokeWallpaper about my old summer jobs.  Here’s one of the more popular stories….this is a true story:
 

The next summer I finally landed an inside job, working as a busboy at a fancy restaurant: the Fogcutter. The restaurant was in Port Huron, Michigan on the shores of the second largest of the great lakes, Lake Huron. In the summer the tourists would flock to Port Huron to enjoy the lake. They often would swim at the public beach called Lakeside.

This was the summer that a new movie had everybody talking sharks. Steven Spielberg’s JAWS was the hit of the summer. The restaurant owner had decided to capitalize on the frenzy by offering a new menu item. The owner had made arrangements to get shark meat from Florida.

Everyday you could hear the reactions of the customers when they came across the listing on the menu “Fillet of Young Great White Shark $7.95.” They’d asked their waitress about it and occasionally ask me if I was nearby.

I would explain “Yes, it really is shark meat. A very mild tasting fillet broiled in butter and lemon, served with red potatoes and green beans.” I would continue “It really is very tasty and very fresh. It is caught here locally in Lake Huron, right off Lakeside Park.” The gasps often could be heard a couple of tables over.

If the customer balked at the idea of sharks in a fresh water lake I would tell them the story known only to the locals. The story of a couple of marine biologists whose experiments went terribly wrong. Their experiments mutated a Great White Shark that then thrived in fresh water and they accidentally released it into the great lakes.

After one customer commented to the owner about the “story telling busboy”, I found myself spending a lot of time at Lakeside soaking up the sun and looking for another job.

You can read the whole series on Summer jobs by clicking here.

Amazon Mechanical Turk Parody - Mtruk

Back in 2005 Amazon launched a new service Amazon Mechanical Turk, called Mturk for short. It’s a service to use what’s called “crowd sourcing” to accomplish tasks.  The Wikipedia entry on Mturk describes the service in detail.

The same day Mturk launched at mturk.com I created a parody page at the mis-spelled domain mtruk.com.  Click here to see the Mtruk parody as it appeared in 2005.

Passenger ‘moons’ speed camera

A front seat car passenger was photographed baring his backside at a speed camera in England.  Here’s the full story from the BBC.  An official noted:

This prank could have been a real distraction from the driver and that is not something to laugh about.

Traffic cameras are big in the UK but fairly new here in the US.  Some major cities have them, we will have more and soon will have our own moon shots.

ChaCha - I (Heart) ChaCha and NY

Mark from ChaCha sent a Tweet via Twitter “We need the I heart chacha bumper stickers!” Which gave me the excuse to waste 10 minutes Photoshopping the picture on the left.  The original picture is from my old JokeWallpaper story…

They don’t drive big brown trucks, but their client does… Letter from a United Parcel Service Attorney

True story.  I got the UPS attorney to send me an “I (Heart) NY” T-shirt.

Putting ChaCha’s Answer Gremlins to the Test

Nice review of ChaCha Mobile Text and 800-2ChaCha from the travel site Gridskipper.

Gridskipper is the Travel Blog site of the professional blogging group Gawker Media Network.  Other Gawker sites you may have heard of include Lifehacker, Deadspin, Defamer, Valleywag and Gizmodo.

Here is one of the questions they asked:

Question (4:01:54 PM): What is the meaning of life?

Response (3:59:46 PM): Life is “trying things to see if they work.” http://chacha.com/u/mwu7r9n1

Here’s the link to the full story….