If you haven’t already heard, some kid was flying around Colorado Springs in a homemade, runaway, UFO balloon thing today.

Excerpt from FOX31 news:

“The flying saucer-shaped experimental aircraft drifted away from a backyard in Fort Collins Thursday morning, setting-off a media frenzy amid reports that 6-year-old Falcon Heene, whose father built the contraption, had climbed inside.

According to the family, Falcon’s brother, Brad, told his parents that Falcon climbed into a utility basket attached to the balloon and, somehow, the rope holding it in-place became untied, allowing the balloon to drift away around 11:00 a.m.

The boy’s father, Richard Heene, said the family was tinkering with the balloon earlier in the day and that he scolded Falcon for getting inside a compartment on the craft.

Authorities say the balloon may have risen as high as 15,000 feet in altitude as it drifted over Colorado’s eastern plains. Around 1:40 p.m., it crashed into an open field near 160th Ave. & County Road 79 in Adams County, approximately 50 miles southeast from where it first took flight.

Fears the boy was inside the balloon prompted a massive emergency response, and international media coverage. Helicopters tracked the balloon in-flight, waiting for it to come down on its own. Authorities also planned for a possible mid-air rescue, just in case it did not.”

Oh my god, that poor kid. Shot out of the sky. Oh wait, that’s a lie. The damn kid wasn’t even in there.

Excerpt from AP:

“The 6-year-old Colorado boy thought to have floated off in a homemade balloon has raised questions whether it might have been a family stunt.

During a live interview on CNN, Falcon Heene said he heard his family calling his name as he hid in the rafters of their garage. At the time, there was a frantic effort to bring down the balloon safely.

Falcon’s father asked, “Why didn’t you come out?” The boy answered, “You had said we did this for a show.”

After the CNN interview, the father said he didn’t know what his son meant.”

Benjamin Heckdorn not only has a bad ass last name, but is a king of modding shit. This is v.5 of his portable Xbox 360 and I must say that I would pay any amount of money (under $300) to get my hands on one of these. Ben is also creating a Bill Paxton pinball machine! Why? Because he can and there’s nothing you can do to stop him!

I’m Just waiting for the Bill Pullman “Mr. Wrong” themed pinball machine I requested on his forums.

if he’s wrong then i don’t want to be right

Now I’ve seen my share of people in lame ass animal uniforms having dance battles, but this one is just plain pathetic. First off… the REAL Jollibee would fuck up that douche bag “Chuckie” the KFC Chicken’s ass. WHO THE FUCK IS “CHUCKIE” ANYWAY?! For the most part it looks like these two have a choreographed dance routine and aren’t really battling. But when the show is over, their short lived “DANCE BATTLE” is L-A-M-E. A little weird head bob thing by the Jollibee and Chuckie got served… hopefully deep fried in 11 herbs and spices. And leave it to the Filipinos to have a (fried) chicken (restaurant) fight in the driveway of someone’s house.

A man in Bakersfield, CA is accused of EATING HIS SON’S EYES! Angelo Mendoza, a 34 year old man in a wheel chair due to a spinal chord injury, apparently high on PCP, ate his 4 year-old son, Angelo Mendoza Jr.’s eyes. A neighbor found Angelo Mendoza Jr. naked and bloody on the floor of their home and police later discovered that one of his eyes was missing and the other was horribly damaged. The boy is quoted as saying “My daddy ate my eyes.” Angelo Mendoza Sr. fled the scene after the attack and began hacking his leg with  an axe.

Now Mendoza awaiting trial is found not fit to appear in court. NO SHIT!

This poor blind kid is going to grow up knowing that his fucked up father ate his eyes! That’s sick.

15th Ave. Starbucks

As stupid a move as I thought that was, Starbucks has done something so underhanded that it could make a perfectly sane coffee drinker, i.e. one that doesn’t frequent the Seattle based chain, sick to their stomach. The chain has turned its 15th ave location in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle into an undercover Starbucks and renamed it 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea, erasing all branding from the location.

According to the Seattle PI, Starbucks’ spokesperson, Kim-Williams, had this to say:

We’re continuing our commitment to delivering specialty coffee excellence while refreshing our store design approach with amplified focus on local relevance. Ultimately, we hope customers will feel an enhanced sense of community and a deeper connection to our coffee heritage.

The market that Starbucks is aiming for with this stunt are the people who go to small, independent, neighborhood coffee shops.  So why do people go to those places instead of Starbucks? Well for one, the quality of Starbucks’ coffee is a grade not much better than one of its newer competitors, McDonald’s. Most Starbucks coffees I’ve had the misfortune to drink taste a bit on the burnt side, while McDonald’s tastes like bitter water. Stumptown Coffee Roasters’ (a Portland based coffee shop with a location on Capitol Hill) coffee is just plain better because it’s quality. The high number of Starbucks’ sales comes from its not-so-coffee drinks, i.e. the mighty Frappaccino and the Caramel Macchiatto. So most people that Starbucks currently targets; the 16 year old teenage girl with the Frappaccino and the office secretary with the Latte no foam; don’t really drink plain, black coffee.

Secondly, Starbucks is a corporation. Seattlites are known to be rebellious and corporate coffee is just down right intolerable. My feelings from the short time I lived in Seattle (I actually lived 3 blocks from the former 15th ave Starbucks on 12th ave), COFFEE IS A SERIOUS MATTER. Places like Bauhaus, Vivace, and Cafe Vita are independent coffee shops and regular haunts for these folks and they serve good, quality coffee. Most of Online Coffee’s clientele is there to use its internet service, which, unlike Starbucks’, is free with a purchase. All these things become a major factor with a social conscious city, and especially a socially conscious neighborhood such as  Capitol Hill, which is filled with young, hip people, most of whom would not be caught dead in a Starbucks, Tully’s, or Pete’s.

Not only is Strabucks trying to get in on the small, neighborhood coffee shop scene, but they’re also pushing ahead into new territory, alcohol. Yes, this new Starbucks will be serving up booze and wine. This is great for Starbucks, but not so much for the bar next door, Smith. The Smith bar, at times, attracts a more, dare I say… yuppie kind of crowd. Hipsters do frequent this bar, but not as often as Linda’s. Yuppies are the ones that go to Starbucks. So if the yuppies could go to Starbucks INSTEAD of Smith to drink beers and “bro down”, would they? Time will tell.

Lastly, it has been hypothesized that Starbucks may be targeting these new potential customers due to its falling sales, mainly because of McDonald’s entry into the wonderful world of sugary coffee drinks. McDonald’s offers up similar items to Starbucks’ popular drinks and at lower prices. So the question I’m asking myself is if Starbucks has to now compete with McDonald’s, why is their strategy to let their current customers leave and try and bring in new ones? Sounds like a cowardly way at attacking a larger corporation. They should lower their drink prices, close more stores and spread them out over a larger area (I pass three Starbucks within seven blocks on my walk to work). McDonald’s can thrive because there’s a McDonald’s in Wal-Marts and in the middle of nowhere, like off of interstates. They simply own more stores than Starbucks in a wider variety of different places. McDonald’s sees to the demands of 16 year old kids who WOULD get a Frappacino IF there was a Starbucks in their backwoods town. For a corporate coffee shop that started in Seattle, they have really lost touch with what it means to be the fighting underdog in a situation and gone after a tapped market that obviously doesn’t want to drink you coffee no matter what you call it.

Give it up Starbucks and fight the good fight. Lower your prices and gain some self respect because you’re seriously giving Seattle coffee a bad name.

Today was the first Day of San Diego Comic Con 2009. It’s also the first year that the convention has completely sold out on-line! No entry for those with dial-up connections. ):

SDCC has gotten SO huge that Google let DC comics take over their front page logo.

Not only that, Google has also created iGoogle themes featuring many classic comic characters such as Superman, Ironman, Snoopy, Krazy Kat, Popeye, and, one of my personal favorites, Nancy. Google also gained cool nerd points with themes from independent and small press comic artists like Daniel Clowes, Jaime Hernandez, Derek Kirk Kim, and bay area cartoonists Lark Pien, Gene Yang, and Hellen Jo.

If you’re at, or going to SDCC, good luck to you. Personally, I’ve attended the convention numerous times in the past as both a attendee and an exhibitor, and I can honestly say that it is somewhere very close to hell on earth.

Fucking give that coupon and a $1.50 to some starving homeless person so they can have a meal that doesn’t come from the trash you yuppie fucks!

The video demo sold it for me and I promptly downloaded the free app with the intention of NOT buying a pizza tonight. Mainly because as cool as the app looks and is, it’s just not all that practical. I don’t want to have to shake my iphone every time I want to order buffalo wings. And the “deals” refrigerator is empty. I’m pretty sure that’s not right`cause they’re always trying to get rid of those damn p’zones.

The trailer looks like they just spliced the two movies together with some scenes of John Cusack from Con Air.

Yes, Taco Bell’s Volcno Taco is… a Pink Taco! Well, it’s actually red, but it’s funnier if you refer to it as pink. It’s actually not very volcanic in heat so all around, this pink taco is not so hot.

I’m now waiting for Arby’s to release its Roast Beef Curtains Sandwich.