Alien is saved by Bran Flakes

If only Sigourney Weaver knew the power of breakfast cereals in the rehabilitation of bloodthirsty creatures from outer space. Mr. Spanky awards this video three LOLs and a snort. Luckily, he wasn't drinking his coffee at the time he was viewing.

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Christmas Decorations

Alert reader SO sent in this pic/story which sounds like something Mr. Spanky would have done if I'd thought of it first:

"Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations. The bad news is that I had to take him down after 2 days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever. Great stories. But two things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by.

Second, a 55-year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn't realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn't take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard."

Why trampolines are not safe in Alberta

From alert reader LO of Calgary, Alberta a dire warning: don't bounce until you've checked out the wildlife situation.

Zero Gravity Bow Wow

Dogs, planes, and zero gravity. A new trend of case of airplane-incited pet abuse? Regardless, the Spankster finds this hilarious. What, do you think, is going through the dog's mind at this point?

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Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear

The pholks over at Learn.Genetics, a website from the University of Utah, have a great interactive graphic on the size of things. It starts out with a coffee bean and ends up with a carbon atom. It's a very effective look at relative size and allows you to get an idea of scale. Who knew that our antibodies were so small relative to the bacteria they beat up? Go team! Check it out.

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Facebook Scam Artists

Normally I'll blog about interesting, funny, or preposterous nonsense that I encounter in my varied travels across the internet-o-sphere. But today is not such a day. I am appalled at the breaking story at TechCrunch which details how Facebook games like Farmville and Mobsters is nothing more than an attempt to trick users into buying useless goods and siphoning off personal information to create further spam.

Although there are a variety of offenders by far the worst violator is Zynga. You think I'm making this up? Check out the very words out of the mouth of the CEO of Zynga as he spoke at a start up meeting in Berkeley: “I knew that I wanted to control my destiny, so I knew I needed revenues, right, [swear word], now. Like I needed revenues now. So I funded the company myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this zwinky toolbar which was like, I don't know, I downloaded it once and couldn’t get rid of it. *laughs* We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business…So control your destiny. So that was a big lesson, controlling your business. So by the time we raised money we were profitable."

I will note that after this story broke that the Zynga folks were nice enough to say that they would consider not scamming you any more. After all, they will make 100 million dollars this year by suckering you and can stop being immoral now. Much appreciated.

So kidz, how could you possibly do anything about this? The power of the internet is in numbers and word-of-mouth. Pass this post onto your friendz. Urge them to stop playing Zynga games like Cafe World, Dragon Wars, FarmVille, Fashion Wars, Mafia Wars, Pirates, Roller Coaster, Scramble, Special Forces, Vampires, Word Twist, and YoVille! You have to hit them where it hurts: their pocketbook.

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