As a kid I always wanted an ant farm. I never got one so maybe that is why I think the ant farms of today are really pretty sweet. Heck these ant farms are not just your average ants and dirt sandwiched between two pieces of plexi-glass, oh no! These suckers are high tech.
AntWorks Ant Farm uses a gel instead of dirt. The gel doubles as nutrition for your little insect buddies as well as their home. Boy are those tunnels cool in that gel. Now you can see all the ant activity. There will be no hiding in the dirt for you my little chums.
If the way cool blue gel wasn’t enough for you the base contains an LED light so you can see your bugs in the dark too. Check out the video for just how cool this ant farm really is. This is recommended for age six and above, but I think any responsible ant fan of any age would enjoy this as a gift. [Hint, hint. I think it would be perfect sitting on my desk at work.] Just a heads up the AntWorks Illuminated Ant Farm is a Bring Your Own Ants [BYOA] project so you may have a little hunting and catching to do as well, or you might see if they have live ants available for purchase so you can start the fun right away.
This post was made possible by the fun folks over at Vat 19 purveyors of curiously awsome gifts. They really do offer up a bunch of unique gift ideas for anyone on your shopping list.
Well another April Fools Day has come and gone without anything significant happening to me. I never pull anything off myself, but I usually get hit. Or the very least someone tries something.
I don’t watch the news or read the paper [not even a blog on a daily basis] so I was in the dark on any attempts by the media too.
Only thing I did see was Pat Sajak’s little joke he pulled on Vanna White. He told her that he was coming clean and that he wears a hair piece and had her pull his wig off. They did a good job with the makeup [of course it is Hollywood]. But that’s the only joke I even heard about this year. Post your comments if you heard of or even better pulled of a good one.
Here is the offending trailer to the new Marvel cartoon Wolverine and the Xmen [most likely we’ll never get this cartoon since these guys are being buttheads about the use of their music….as if it is hurting them any having it used here].
I am looking forward to the new CD Dreamland which is described as a cross between an old time radio show and a broadway musical. Brent Spiner is joined by singer Maude Margart and Mark Hamil [that guy from Star Wars and numerous cartoons like Batman]. The new CD looks promising and by the looks of the above video they had fun making the disk.
Being the geek that I am I spent the extra five bucks to get a signed version of the disk. [Which reminds me I need to head to Robert Picardo’s website and order his CD too.] You can get the new Brent Spiner [aka Data] CD at his website www.the realbrentspiner.com.
Have we gone too far? Are we getting closer to fulfilling Orwell’s prophecy in 1984? Is big brother watching us? Well yes, we have and he is, but big brother is not always what you think it is. There are video cameras everywhere now. We cannot get away from them so I suppose we must learn to live with them. Cameras point at us from the corners of most every room in public buildings and from street corners. They are there for our protection and safety. Aren’t they? But what about all those personal cameras used to catch our every move. Almost every cell phone has video now and so do the small pocket digital cameras. With nearly every human carrying around a handy digital video camera we never know who or what is being taped or where that tape is going to end up. With the popularity of YouTube and sites like it we will never see the end of this privacy invasion. We as a society must learn to adapt. We must learn to behave if we can. I don’t know if we that is possible. Perhaps we need to add basic manners and social skills to school curriculum. Not that it would matter much as it might already be too late. The worst thing is no one really seems to care. The stuff they see or do anymore doesn’t even embarrass them.
Heaven help us when we start taping and watching each other twenty-four seven. Oh wait, that is already happening. In April Justin. tv was supposed to do just that (I have not checked it out as I have no interest in it). But what about privacy? Doesn’t this require the permission of those people taped before being aired?
Who gives them the right to make money off of me, my image, my likeness? I didn’t sign a model release or contract. Does the average Joe now need to go out and get an agent just so they can get a piece of this pie? You know they cannot do this without making money on it so how do I go about protecting my rights and my interests? This then brings me back to YouTube. They sell ad space even ads right on the videos now. Do I as the producer, director, and writer of these videos get a portion of those profits? I doubt it. In fact I would bet that the terms of service agreement we all ignore, but all agree to, says we get nothing. Perhaps we should strike like the writers in Hollywood and not post to these sites that are making money off our videos.
I used to belong to a site that allowed you to post your own stories. It was very similar to today’s blogs. But they shared their ad revenue with the site contributors. Helium does this to some degree. Other community created sites should think about doing this sort of thing too. Google is working on a site similar to wikipedia and you know they will get money out of it. Shouldn’t the writers for that site make money from their articles? About.com pays their guides to write on the topics they know best. In fact wikipedia should verify their info (hope I haven’t shocked anyone by insinuating that the almighty wikipedia has incorrect information in it) and share any generated revenue with their contributors.
Web 2.0 screams contributor based content. I scream right back at it pay me for the content I post to your site then I will consider posting it there. Otherwise it is mine and I am keeping it. So don’t tape me, photograph me or quote me unless you plan on paying me.
