Aug 18 2008 Galactic Empire Invades San Francisco

This is a video of the Galactic Empire invading San Francisco. There's the Death Star, Star Destroyer, some AT-ATs, and a bunch of other vehicles. While it's not the best CG I've ever seen, I still felt it was worth a viewing. I especially liked the part at the end where the three hot bikini chicks are screaming at the driver of an AT-ST.

Death Star Over San Francisco [current]

Thanks to Evan and Patrick, who could bring down the Death Star with a potato gun.

*Haha, made you watch! I'm an asshole.

Jul 17 2008 Disgruntled IT Administrator Comandeers San Francisco City Network, Gets Arrested, Sticks It To The Man By Refusing To Give Up Password

Terry Childs, 43, is acting like one and refuses to give up the password he created that is effectively blocking all access to San Francisco's new multimillion-dollar network. Why did he do it? Possibly because he was on the verge of canning.

Childs has worked for the city for about five years. One official with knowledge of the case said he had been disciplined on the job in recent months for poor performance and that his supervisors had tried to fire him. "They weren't able to do it - this was kind of his insurance policy."

Officials also said they feared that although Childs is in jail, he may have enabled a third party to access the system by telephone or other electronic device and order the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents.

As part of his alleged sabotage, Childs engineered a tracing system to monitor what other administrators were saying and doing related to his personnel case, law enforcement officials said.

Damnit Terry, the city paid you $149,269 last year, just do your freaking job. I'd do anything for that kind of money, including, but not limited to: work, selling all my internal organs except the kidney, televangelism, and turning tricks in the back of a hybrid. I'm telling you, eco-friendly johns are a growing market. If the Prius is a rockin' don't bother knockin', you have to wait your turn or pay $5 to watch.

Way more in-depth article link follows.

S.F. officials locked out of computer network [sfgate]

Thanks Romeo, now lets do something similar to Skynet before it's too late.

May 19 2008 Questionable: Huge LEGO Indiana Jones Boulder Rolled Down Hill In San Francisco

This is allegedly a 5 million piece LEGO boulder being rolled down a hill in San Francisco. I find it hard to believe it's solid and 5 million pieces because it seems pretty light. But who knows, stranger things have happened (my penis once fell off in the shower after I scrubbed it with a loofah). So these guys roll this big-ass LEGO boulder down a hill while some guy dressed loosely as Indiana Jones runs in front of it (and another in a fez that may or may not be Sallah makes bad commentary). Eventually the boulder bounces off a tree and stops after hitting a parked van. Now we could bicker back and forth all day long whether or not this is fake, so for the sake of argument we'll just agree that it should have been a lot cooler.

UPDATE: Turns out the boulder is styrofoam in the middle. FAIL. Thanks Detective Steph.

Youtube

Thanks to Altaire, who could train horses to make more realistic LEGO boulders

Mar 3 2008 Man Mods Car Into Wicked X-Wing Fighter

Some guy in California modded his Honda del Sol into Luke's X-Wing Fighter from Star Wars: A New Hope. As you can see it's got R2 in the trunk, some nice graphics work (burns, Rebel insignia), and laser blasters on the car doors. I swear if you squint your eyes, shake your head and punch yourself in the groin at the same time it really does look like a '94 Honda del Sol with a trashcan coming out of the trunk. In all honestly though, I really do like it and think the guy did a great job. It certainly turned out better than my Ford Taurus X-Wing mod. Yeah, I was going for the look of the fighter when it was in the Dagobah Swamp, so I drove it into a lake. I haven't seen it in awhile, but a catfish I met at the bar told me it looks great down there.

Honda del Sol mod [notcot]

Jan 30 2008 It's About Time: Pot Vending Machines

We posted another drug vending machine a little while ago, and now there's one made specifically for marijuana -- all thanks to Vincent Mehdizadeh, a Los Angeles medical-cannabis dispensary owner. The heavily armored machines dispense your medication in 1/8 and 1/4 ounce envelopes and require fingerprint and prepaid card verification in order to operate. 1/8 ounce packages go for about $40. The 24-hour machines were designed to provide "convenient access, lower prices, safety, and anonymity." Awesome, except they'll be stoners hanging around these things like flies waiting for people to use them.

A man who said he has been authorized to use medical marijuana as part of his anger management therapy said the vending machine's security measures would at least protect against illicit use of the drug.

However when his pot got stuck in the machine like a candy bar the man went bat-shit nuts and knocked the dispenser over, spilling skunky Baba Ghanoush Kush everywhere.

Pot vending machines take root in Las Angeles [msnbc]

Thanks to Ryan, who is both handsome and intelligent, for the tip