Thanks to Peggy for sending me this video of a stunt pulled off by Improv Everywhere, whose slogan is “we cause scenes”. The setup is that 207 people all walking through Grand Central Station in New York all freeze in place at the exact same second, and hold still for a full 5 minutes.

Most interestingly, it’s inspired people in 28 other cities in 13 countries to stage their own freeze mission. Thousands people worldwide in places like Romania, Poland, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and New Zealand have come together to make time stop for five short minutes. Below is a roundup of all of the videos of the various global freeze events.
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I just had to give up my Sprint powered PPC8800 for a Blackberry Curve 8310 so I could be on the communal rate plan and also have real-time Exchange access for e-mail at work. After doing so it forced me to do a lot of research on applications and ways to better my Curve.

I figured some other people are going to go looking for this info as well, so I’ve compiled what I learned here. Its not my most organized post, but there is a lot of information and I didn’t want to spend forever getting the post out. Hopefully if anyone knows of other cool, free stuff for the BB you’ll drop a comment below and let me know.
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For anyone sensitive to plane crashes, you won’t find this funny… but for everyone else, the surprise ending on this commercial will make you laugh.

This one apparently comes from a European travel agency. Enjoy.
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We really take the little things for granted in the USA, like not having to share the road with mules, comically over-burdened bicycles and crazy pieced together vehicles. But in Vietnam all of these things coexist (not exactly in harmony either).

All of these photos were taken by our close friend Vi just a few weeks ago in Vietnam. In addition to the photos, you absolutely have to watch the completely insane videos she took of the traffic in downtown Saigon. It is truly, unbelievable. People pay zero attention to any sort of traffic signal, and as a result it is a complete free-for-all.
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Ok. This is truly unbelievable. When I say that 75 Trillion (with a T) crabs swarm Christmas Island, I am not exaggerating or kidding. You just have to watch this video, as creepy as it is, to believe this.

By the way, you can read all about the Christmas Island red crabs over on Wikipedia, or on the Christmas Island National Park site.
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Man, have you ever been stuck on an airplane anywhere near the lavatory? It can be a downright miserable experience. And the attached PDF is a scanned copy of a customer letter sent to Continental Airlines by a passenger seated directly beside the toilet on a nice long flight.

Here is a choice quote from the letter, but I’m telling you - you’ve got to read it yourself. It brought tears to my eyes!

I constructed a stink-shield by shoving one end of a blanket into the overhead compartment - while effective in blocking at least some of the smell, and offering a small bit of privacy, the ass-on-my-body factor has increased, as without my evil glare passengers feel free to lean up against what they think is some kind of blanketed wall!

Read the entire letter here.

And now I present for your viewing pleasure about 20 minutes of off-road footage shot during our vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii.

This is all Point-of-View videography, so you’re more or less seeing what we saw when we were driving - at least through the front window. The way I accomplished this was to use a small clamp-on camera mount combined with my Panasonic FX07 digital camera.

The camera has optical image stabilization, so the ride doesn’t look quite as bumpy as it actually was.
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I don’t normally pass along things that circulate the Inter-Tubes via e-mail, but this is pretty interesting information - if it is all true. I have no idea where it originated, but a family member sent it to me. I’d be curious if anyone could actually vet this info and prove / disprove it’s validity.

I don’t know what you guys are paying for gasoline…. but here in California we are also paying higher, up to $3.50 per gallon. But my line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money’s worth for every gallon.

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Waikoloa Village is basically a subdivision on the Big Island of Hawaii that has a wide variety of housing units ranging from single family homes, to condos, to high end hotels. Among the hotels is the Hilton Waikoloa Village, and this is where I spent the week on my recent trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. (View in Google Earth. What is Google Earth?)

The hotel is ideally located for branching out to explore all the various parts of the island, and the facilities are enormous. 64 acres of highly manicured grounds complete with a private bay, swimming pools, and even a dolphin habitat. With over 1,200 rooms, this is a large hotel by any measure. A local man told me that the property was originally developed by a Japanese company for $360 Million, but later sold at a huge loss for $90 Million to Hilton.

Although the hotel is basically a Disneyland for adults, there are some critical flaws which greatly detract from it as a serious vacation destination. At the same time, there is some great stuff to see and do… like swim with the dolphins!
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Man, now that I’ve seen this, I’ve got a lot of stuff coming my way. Lets see, there are at least 50 hot women who owe me a date. I’m expecting three raises. I’ll be winning the lottery any day now. And I should be allowed to run right out and buy my brand new Lamborghini!

During my recent visit to Maui, Hawaii I spent the better part of a day traveling along the famous road to Hana. For those of you that are unaware, it’s one of the most famous drives in the world.

According to the T-Shirt, we’re talking about:

617 curves, 56 bridges, 52 miles and 3 hours

… of non-stop driving fun. Of course, the whole point of the Road to Hana is the drive, not the destination.
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While on Maui for three days I stayed at the Maui Coast Hotel in Kihei. I did all the standard research, starting with their Web site, I also checked TripAdvisor and it got a 4.0.

They had a special for a one room suite for $175 / night, which is a great rate on Maui. The hotel is only 3 miles from the Four Seasons, Hilton and Marriott so I reasoned that it would be worth saving 50% and just driving around. Plus there are beaches right near the Maui Coast Hotel as well.

Unfortunately all the logic in the world won’t turn the Maui Coast into a good deal.
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