Merry Christmas

The Christmas Story (in art) (from RealLivePreacher.com)

The other Christmas Story (and the wiki)

A bunch of Christmas Stories

And, if you missed them, you can watch 101 Christmas movies, TV shows, music videos, commercials and other stuff online here.

Scared of Santa's Blog

Did you know Santa Claus had a blog? Yep.

And the ever popular newspaper item, the Scared of Santa photo gallery.

• Chicago Trib
• Austin American Statesman
• Orlando Sentinal
• LA Times
• Sun-Sentinal
• South Florida

YouTube slideshow of the South Florida pics with an annoying laughing version of Carol of the Bells soundtrack.

More Holiday Hilarity

Elf Yourself

Click the pic for a message from Mark Cloud. Make your own and post the link in the comments.

While you're there, mouse down to the Office Max tab at the bottom and check out the other Holiday Hilarity. Some are lame, some are cool. There's a better Shake the Globe and North Pole Dancing has its moments. For total random content, check out Holiday Greetings from the North Pole. My favorite is Don't Shoot Your Eye Out.

Nod to: Ragamuffin Soul

The All-Rudolph All-the-Time Station

Nod to: Kelly, who may be shouting out, but not with glee, since her kids found this site.

Parkour

I've been sitting on this one for months, as other topics have bubbled to the top. But now that the new Bond movie is out, with a 5 minute parkour sequence after the opening credits featuring Foucan, it's time to release this one into the wild.

Parkour is the art of running, jumping and climbing all over the urban landscape like a monkey on crack. The name is based on the French word for "obstacle." Invented by childhood friends Sebastien Foucan and David Belle in France, it has become a philosophy, an art (in the way martial arts are an art) and the subject of tons of amateur videos. You can find dozens by searching on "parkour." Here are a few for your amusement.

Nike Commercial with Sebastien Foucan

I like this one. There is an earlier BBC commercial with David Belle, but I haven't found it available on the Net.

Playing time: 1:04

Chase Scene

This has what many parkour videos are lacking, a motivation for running around. It's from a French movie. Probably one of the best I've seen.

Playing time : 2:59

The Dvinsk Clan

Because of all the stopping to do back flips off things and what not, this is not considered true parkour, which features smooth movement naturally adapting to the landscape. I include it because it is the first video of the genre that I saw about a year ago. These Russians develop a mood, but I could do without the psychotic video editing.

Playing time: 8:24

Holiday Games

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it's time to drag out all the Christmas stuff.

This is amusing, even if it is a one-trick pony.

Help Oliver the Elf Spank Frank the Penguin into the floating baskets. (OK, I have no idea how this fits in with Christmas, but it's fun.)

The Naughty or Nice meter at www.claus.com is amusing, but the response time earns them a "naughty" rating. Hey Claus.com, it's Christmas. Your server's going to get hammered! Get a better hosting service!

Vote

Now that I have a little time available, I'm trying out some new ideas for the banner on www.StupidInternetTricks.com. Vote in the comments.

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ThinkGeek.com

Somehow I came across this gadget, which is possibly one of the most simple but evil devices ever conceived. Called the Mind Molester, it produces a one-second electronic chirp about once every 3 minutes. As the website indicates, "due to the chirp's duration, frequency, and sound characteristics, it's a very difficult, time-consuming, frustrating and maddening task to locate the unit. " Think of the cricket that starts up about 5 minutes after you turn off the light. However, since it doesn't have remote activation and starts 5 minutes after it's connected to the battery, you can't have this thing inflicted upon you completely anonymously. The perpetrator would have to be somebody who had access to your location in the past few minutes. So you have your list of victims for retaliation with the Sonic Grenade or the Airzooka Air Gun.

By contrast, the TV-B-Gone might be on the short list for the Nobel Peace Prize. It is a universal remote with one function only: power OFF. Holding down the button causes it to cycle through a range of power-off signals in 69 seconds. Ninety percent of televisions within 20 to 50 feet will be off within 17 seconds. So you can do something about the TV in the airport that is keeping you awake at 2am when your flight is delayed. Or the obnoxiously loud bar TV. Of course the bar tender might turn it back on, but if you are covert enough, you can keep turning it off until he gives up.

The Excuse Box seems cool, but it's probably more risky. It provides an array of ten background noises that give you an excuse to get off the phone, including: thunder, sirens, auto garage, crying baby, construction, plane boarding call, plane departure announcement, static, secretary paging you and operator breaking in.

But nothing says GEEK! like the Scrolling LED Belt Buckle. Texans are proud of their belt buckles, but how many of them come with a user manual? (And this manual is one of the best examples of Engrish around.) The buckle is 3.5" x 1.8" with onboard speed and brightness adjustments and programming buttons. It stores up to six 256-character messages.

Funky Products

Because everything is cute until it poops. No, we're not talking about grandkids (although we could be) but birds.

The Wunderfool blog doesn't normally do products, but this was too good to pass up. The brand: Grumpy Girl. The product: Auto Bird Turd Emergency Kit. All you need to eliminate the results of avian dive-bombing attacks. While you're there, check out the t-shirts. My favorite is the Grumpy Girl for President. Particularly the tax-deferred Coffee Savings Accounts.

But I didn't stop there. Following a few links got me to this bizarre set of buttons. Cheer up Emo kid? And what's with the skull butterfly? Or the cat with its tail plugged into the AC socket? My favorite, though, is the owl that says "Whom!"

And, as a sneak preview to next week's entry and because the Wunderfool blog never sleeps in our efforts to provide you with quality surfing distractions, I found a blog entry of the top 10 weirdest USB drives ever. The sushi looks good enough to eat. I like the "thumb drive." But you won't believe the Barbie doll.

Obsessed Animals

Sheep vs Swingset

Playing time: 0:28

Cat vs Toilet

Via: VideoSift

Playing time: 2:49

Mouse vs Treadmill

Playing time: 1:42

Cat vs Printer

This one is a little slow and the fun ends at about 1:25.

Via: VideoSift

Playing time: 1:48

Pong Hat Trick

Three videos with creative spins on ping pong and Pong.

Human Pong

Playing time: 1:47

Andy Roddick vs Pong: AmEx commercial

Playing time: 0:45

Ping Pong meets The Matrix: Low-tech special effects

Playing time: 1:43

Holiday Crafts

Do some virtual holiday crafts. No mess to clean up!

Carve A Pumpkin

Nod to: Kelly Brewer

Make A Flake

Nod to: Lisa Samson

Stupid Internet Tricks

Check out the new website and future home of this blog.

Let me know what you think on the comments here.

LA to NY in 4 Minutes

This is the fastest you'll ever cross North America.

Playing time: 4:00

Balance

This is an award-winning stop-motion animation filmed by the Lauenstien brothers in Germany in their parent's cellar. Understated and thoughtful. More on their website.

Playing time: 7:39

Line Rider

Draw a line, hit play and a guy on a sled rides the line. That's it.

So why is it that I find this mindless toy highly amusing and absurdly addictive? I can't say.

However, it's not as simple as it looks on this video and others. (You can search YouTube for Line Rider and get dozens of hits.) Too steep, the dude falls off or spins upside down or slams into a wall. (Which can be amusing, as well.)

Entertainment doesn't come any cleaner and simpler than Line Rider.

Warning: Highly addictive.

Nod to: Ragamuffin Soul

This just in: Line Flyer is a rip-off of Line Rider with two differences - a Radio Flyer wagon instead of a sled and . . . an UNDO feature!

Despair.com

It should come as no surprise that I am a large fan of the Despair.com. I have all the calendars. And, as you know, they've been around for years. So why am I devoting a Wunderfool blog entry to them, you ask?

Do-It-Yourself Despair Posters.

Go Crazy.

Send me any good ones you might come up with. I'm toying with the idea of creating a gallery. But I'm an arbitrary and picky jerk. If yours sucks, I won't use it and you'll just have to live with that.

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Some contributions from Ken Kienow.

OK GO

It takes more than good music to get a band on the Wunderfool Blog. After all, this blog is about cool things on the net, not music. So ignore the fact that OK GO seems to have unlocked the secret of the perfect rock song and uleashed it on the world. (Thankfully they are using their powers for good.)

OK GO first entered my radar screen when I caught their video of "A Million Ways" somewhere on the net last year. How can you not love what appears to be a totally homegrown video of non-dancer-type band members doing a choreographed dance to their song in the backyard? Especially when the choreography is as cheesy and outright hilarioius as this? (You'll have to scroll down their video page and find the video.)

That video alone merits a Wunderfool appearance. But then Daniel clues me in that they topped it with the "Here It Goes Again" video, choreographed with 8 (count 'em) treadmills, their place in infamy was sealed. The bass player is too much. (White shoes, pink shirt, vest.) What is it about bass players that make them so insane? While you're on the video page, check out the Ping-Pong Instructional Video.

Nod to: Daniel

WeFeelFine.org

The creativity of humans unleashed on the internet never ceases to amaze me.

(Also the crassness, vulgarity, crudeness, stupidity, boringness [is that a word?], hatefulness and all those other deplorable traits, but today we're talking about creativity.)

We Feel Fine mines the feelings of bloggers from their posts, categorizes them by several metrics, and then presents them in intruiging ways. It sounds boring, but it isn't. You can read a better description on their Mission page, but the best thing is just to load the application and click around a little.

So, go get in touch with the feelings of the world today.

Nod to: Blake Atwood

Warning: Moderately addictive

Mac vs PC vs Mac

You know those amusing but condescending Mac vs PC ads? Here are 3 amusing but condescending parodies.

Warning: F-word alert in the parodies.

Playing time: 2:17

Office Space Wars / Troops

Star Wars meets Office Space

Playing time: 4:07

Star Wars meets Cops

Playing time: 10:11

Daily Daily Photo Blogs

Here's something that's pretty cool: City Daily Photo Blogs. (Say that ten times fast!)

Unfortunately citydailyphoto.blogspot.com has not been updated in ages, so it doesn't have all the latest (and coolest) cities (like Austin, for example). Fortunately, there's a map at dailyphotomap.com plus the actual photoblogs have links so you can find some cool places to check out, like Paris, or Honolulu, or Cambridge, or Albuquerque. (Don't laugh, there are some amazing photos on that one!)

Ever wonder what the places you hear on the news look like? Places like Kuala Lumpur, or Seoul or Beirut. (This last one is good to see what life was like in Beirut before the bombing, since all you see on the news is explosions and rubble. Evidently in July the photographer fled the war to Saudi Arabia and has since posted photos of the area by other photographers.)

There are over 100 cities with somebody posting a picture every day from that city. If you have the bug, all you need is a camera, a computer and a (free) Blogger account. Think you need to live in some big city or incredibly scenic place? Think again. Folks in Sharon, CT and Van Buren, AR have joined the fun.

Heck, even Sean Claes in Kyle, TX started one up this month. And there ain't nuthin in Kyle. Well, perhaps more than there is in Fred, TX. But nobody there has started a city daily photo blog, yet. Maybe Mark Cloud will get into the act. I hear he likes photography.

Eine Kleine Face Musik

This is 24 seconds well spent.

Playing time: 0:24

If you can't do clever things with your face, you can always buy a camera that will do clever things to your face for you.

Playing time: 2:31

This thing is catching on. Here are some kids playing around with it. I'm waiting for someone (maybe you) to really get creative and do an ongoing vlog (video blog) as one of the faces.

Playing time: 2:06

Got Wazzup?

Budweiser meets Milk.

Warning: Very high cuteness factor

Playing time: 0:54

In case you've been in a cave for the past decade:

Playing time: 0:30

And, as a bonus, Budweiser's parody of their own commercial:

Playing time: 0:30

The Irresistible Camera

It's amazing what some people do when they have access to a camera.

In the case of Ghyslain Raza of Quebec, Canada, it took the form of filming himself doing StarWars light saber moves. Unfortunately, leaving the video tape laying around resulted in it being posted on Kazaa and then edited by all those people who seem to have too much time on their hands to add visual and audio effects, spoofing Star Wars, the Matrix, the Hulk and others. Ghyslain dropped out of school and the net community rallied to buy him an iPod and sent him several thousands dollars in cash. You can get the scoop and links to the edits on Wikipedia.

Playing time: 1:48

For others, what seemed like a good idea at the time looks different in retrospect. Gary Brolsma of Saddle Brook, NJ, a.k.a. The Numa Numa Dancer, posted a video of himself lip-synching and chair-dancing to a Romanian pop song. It led to airings on CNN and VH1, an appearance on "Good Morning America" for Gary and millions of viewings and downloadings. But Gary now regrets posting it and is embarrassed and distraught. More detail here.

Playing time: 1:37 but it loops.

For others, the fame is not only welcome but exploited. The Back Dormitory Boys have followed up their hilarious lip-synch of I Want It That Way with As Long As You Love Me, some Chinese song, Get Down (You're The One For Me), Don't Lie and the New Pepsi Song (in German), all with a roommate in the background working on his computer. And now somebody (I hope it is the BDB) has leveraged the traffic into an attempt to sell the domain name.

So, may more people go crazy with cameras and the Wunderfool Blog wil never run out of material.