The Icy Hot Stuntaz are back, yo.  Be sure to check out the debut single, "I Be Stuntin' Fo' Life"

http://music.download.com/icyhotstuntaz/3600-8525_32-100084376.html

(The lyrics suggest this fresh track is from 2003, so Shiny D is a little late on reporting the Stuntaz triumphant comeback album.)

It has an amazing memory:

Coldplay is hard at work on their 3rd album and Chris Martin is already starting up the "we'll never outdo this" talk:

"We’ve got some **** good songs. That’s one thing we are sure of. I don’t think we’ll top this. I always say that, but this time I really mean it. I really don’t think we’ll top it."

http://www.nme.com/news/111243.htm

I just installed Front Page 2003 because I've read that you can use it to do some pretty fancy things with Sharepoint Services web sites. I decided to start by reading the Front Page online help and the advice it gave me was pretty priceless:

Administration features for SharePoint Services

For information about tools to help you administer your Web site based on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services or SharePoint Team Services v1.0 from Microsoft, do the following:

1. In a Web browser, open a page from your SharePoint site that contains a SharePoint link bar.
2. Click Help on the link bar.

Thanks for the tip, guys!

More out of curiosity than a desire for the 3 cents I'm bound to make, I enrolled in Google AdSense and will be displaying Google Ads on Shiny D.  Eventually, I'll be replacing these ads with an rss aggregator that displays links to other blogs, but for now these ads will occupy that space.

Because AdSense is based on a keyword search of my site, the 5 ads I'm seeing now are all for Democratic party sites, with the most unsavory being BeatBushGear.com, which features "Anti-Bush Shirts and Gear."  I was hoping AdSense would be smart enough to base the ads on page content, not meta keywords or title tags...  Please provide any feedback in this thread.

Newsarama  has posted an interview with Marc about his new Power Pack series @ Marvel.  It sounds like they're up to some good things over there, hopefully this one will get beyond the dreaded 5-6 issue barrier.  At the end of the interview, Marc plugs our on-again/off-again Abandoned Warehouse Press project.  We've been trying to get that puppy back up and running a few times since it went dormant but keep coming up short.  Someone please send a kick in the **** to my house to get me moving again (and see what you can do about these pesky "job" and "wedding" plans that are taking up all of my free time).

Yahoo! Finance has named their Top 25 jobs for 2005.  "Computer Software Engineer" is listed 3rd and "Computer Systems Analyst" is 9th.

Bizarrely, "Athlete" is 10th and "Actor" is 14th, suggesting that such careers are lucrative & desirable.  But isn't including those groups similar to putting "President of the USA" or "Heiress" on that list?  While it's certaily true that life can be grand for the few hundred that succeed in each category, aren't those folks statistical outliers?  Jennifer Aniston may make mega millions for a cameo but a great deal of actors get $50-$100 / day (and that's only when they're working!).  So instead of providing a serious finding of where people should focus their education or training efforts, Yahoo! have instead provided data that is so skewed, it becomes academic.  Nonetheless, it is encouraging that computer-related work is still so lucrative & sought after.

In a related story, ESPN's Chris Mortensen is reporting that Blearns is considering leaving Doceus early for the NFL.  He has until February 1 to declare for the draft, watch this space for updates.

Has anyone else listened to Brian Wilson's new album, Smile, the long overdue follow up to the Beach Boys Pet Sounds?  Just like Pet Sounds, the first time I heard Smile I thought it was good, but nothing to rave about.  On subsequent playings, though, I find more and more about it to like -- and now I can't stop listening to it.

I always thought of Brian Wilson as a guy who sang about surfing, not a serious musician, so hearing these 2 albums for the first time has been extremely eye opening.

In the spirit of discovering new music, if any of you clowns has any other new music to recommend, I've got an iTunes gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket.

Well, it seems the J-holes at Amazon.com have been onto the referral fee discount program since the second Quarter of 2004 and I'm only now noticing.  I was just reviewing my Amazon.com earnings report & noticed that starting Q2 2004, there is a new line item called "Personal Orders" which has deducted about 75% of the money I made w/ my referral links, meaning 75% of those referrals were me simply clicking my own links.  Amazon's Payment section explains:

Why is there a deduction for personal use of the program?

We do not pay referral fees for products you purchase through your own links. This includes orders for customers, orders on behalf of customers, and orders for products to be used by you, your friends, your relatives, or your associates in any manner.

I give them credit for finally getting wise to this wonderful way to save an extra 3% at Amazon, but it will definitely discourage me from making additional purchases there.  I always felt they looked the other way on this one because if people felt they were "making money" off of Amazon, they would be more likely to buy additional items.  Just one or two extra items purchased per year would surely cover the cost difference...

So, anyone know of any other good link or referral programs for teeny message-board-ish sites?

ShinyDonkey.com now features Polls and what better way to kick off a new Shiny D feature than with a question about our good friend Bull?  It seems he recently accepted a new job (hooray!) but I don't think he's come up with a nick name for his new co-workers to call him...

Remember, every vote counts and Bull must accept the final tally - unless he doesn't believe in Democracy.  You do believe in Democracy, don't you Bull?

The Associated Press is reporting that a few Democratic operatives are being charged with slashing the tires of Republican-rented vans on Nov. 2 to prevent their get out the vote efforts.

Reading the story, I reacted immediately to what I imagine other people doing while they read the story...  Republicans & Democrats alike are probably shaking their heads at the stupidity of this crime.  Had it been a group of 4 idiot Republicans slashing tires, though, methinks most Dems would be nodding their heads, saying "Yes, this is what Republicans do."

Hopefully, this story will get good coverage and continue to dispel the myth that Republican operatives are evil minority-vote opressors while Democrats are benevolant counters of all votes.  There are plenty of shenanigans on the Republican side and the Democrat side (but probably just pot on the Green party side).

Someone rush this to Dave Chappelle, he'll know how to treat it with just the right amount of irreverence.

We all know slavery existed in our country, but it is quite different to see how our history and the institution of slavery were intertwined. Slavery was tragically ingrained in American society, but that is no excuse.

We apologize to the American public, and particularly to African-Americans, for the role that Citizens Bank and Canal Bank played during that period.

[ Bank One ]

I think the Kurt Angle theme needs to play when you open the page.

TheLastWord - blog for the ages

So I got this email from InformIT.com about how to hurt your google ranking.  One way that they mentioned was by surrounding parts or entire words in spans to either hide, or adjust their methods of display.  Basically your span trick around the "Shiny Donkey .com" in the breaking news is probably hurting your ranking.  Just FYI.

According to WROX, Microsoft discourages preceding private member variables in C# with the underscore character, yet I see it all over the net.  Lately, especially with enums, I've started to think that maybe it's not such a bad idea.  Take this case, for instance, what would anyone else do in this scenario?

public enum MachineType { WindowsXP, WindowsNT, Unknown };

class Bob {
//what I do now, appending the word "this" before private enums
private MachineType thisMachineType;

//what I probably should do
private MachineType _machineType;
}

In both of these cases, though, my public property names would suck.  Anyone have a 3rd option?

So, I'm looking to continue the revamp of this site & am wondering what thoughts any of you might have?  And no, bringing back the bull junk is not an option.

The top nav is getting pretty crammed but does anyone think I can fit a poll up there somewhere?  Maybe I should expand my site beyond 760 pixels & add a poll in the right margin?  What resolutions are people using these days?

What about a blog feed for other sites?  I think it would be cool to incorporate something akin to my "new shiny donkey posts" section that shows recent posts from everyone else's sites.

And does anyone besides me think the movie quotes are funny?  I think they're genius, but I expect that I'm one of about 2 people on the planet who enjoy them.  And since it's such an obscure joke, perhaps it's not worth that huge real estate expaning the top row on every page load.

What about the celebrity non-endorsements?  We can all agree that those work, right?  Anyone have any false advertisement requests?

Um, it looks like those How's Your News guys are releasing a sequel that's airing on new year's eve?!?!  Does anyone have any more info on this?  Does Wendy know that the first one is now available on DVD for Alex's birthday?

How is your news, anyway?  Listen here & find out...
http://www.howsyournews.com/mp3/01_HowsYourNews.mp3

It would seem that 'Lex has a heart for something besides NASCAR:

His wife: "It's the relationship he had with his wife" that helped make Reagan special, said Alex Santantonio, 26, of Alexandria, Va. "The images of TV dinners (shared by the couple) were images you didn't see in first families."

[ USA Today ]

*sniff* *sniff* so touching. You'll never see a quote like that from that blogdouche Kelci...

Ok, so there is this story on CNN.com about a duck hunter that was rescued because he tied his underwear to a gun and waved it to get the attention of the rescue helicopter.  Sounds like a feelgood story if I ever seen one...  Then I read the whole thing, and yep, pretty much as it sounds.  He was stranded in full camo in a flooded area with only his dog.  No way to get attention and it was getting dark (and probably pretty cold).  So he gets rescued, but the thing that I find most amusing is the last paragraph in the story which consists of two sentences.  Don't ask me why I read the last sentence first, but the last sentence reads...

To survive, he drank dirty bayou water and ate a raw duck breast.

So I'm thinking he has been there for like a week, wandering about, trying to get someone's attention.  He had to risk his health by drinking potentially infested water, and then driven to the edge he tore into the recently killed bird, again risking how many unsanitary and possibly deadly diseases for his unadjusted immune system, just so that he could live to see another day and be rescued.  How long can one live without food I think, how long without water even worse... What a courageous man, how MacGyver like to be able to survive an ordeal such as this, while keeping his wits and sanity.  I wonder how frail he was, how he even had the strength to wave a gun with underwear on it at a helicopter to be rescued, basically how would I react in a similar situation (aside from not being stupid enough to be in the situation), basically WWBD?  Then I read the entire last paragraph...

Lipscomb had been in the flooded timberland near Hollowell Reservoir for about 12 hours when he was rescued. To survive, he drank dirty bayou water and ate a raw duck breast.

WTF?  12 Hours?  He couldn't wait to eat for 12 hours?  Seriously, WTF?  Idiot...

The whole story if you would like: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/12/flooded.backwoods.ap/index.html

Ben Berkowitz couldn't reach you for comment, Jerry?

As goes pornography, so goes technology. The concept may seem odd, but history has proven the adult entertainment industry to be one of the key drivers of any new technology in home entertainment. Pornography customers have been some of the first to buy home video machines, DVD players and subscribe to high-speed Internet.

[ Yahoo News ]

When illegally sneaking into the US, it is illegal to bring any weapons. If you are caught with any weapons you will not be allowed to illegally enter the US.

- Vincente Fox

Bull pointed out that I don't seem to have hover text for my category images.  I've written ALTs for all of them, so I was surprised.  Well, apparently FireFox does not show ALT hover text, only hover text for TITLE (since this is the w3c spec).

Curse you for leading me to bad practice, IE!!!!

http://www.gadgetopia.com/2004/11/09/FirefoxALTTagsAndTooltips.html

Well, I am thinking a lot about how to best use and market the ideas that have been building for about 3 years now.  Anyone up for a T-shirt?

I know she's from California, but even then, what in the world would cause Barbara Boxer to CRY about contesting the Ohio election results???

United States Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) (R) wipes tears from both her eyes as she listens to U.S. Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) discuss their filing of a formal objection to the certification of President George W. Bush 's general election presidential votes from the State of Ohio at the U.S. Capitol in Washington January 6, 2005. The objection entered by Tubbs Jones and Boxer forced the Senate and House to delay the certification of Bush's election win and retire to their separate chambers to debate the alleged irregularities cited in the objection. REUTERS/Mannie Garcia

Just got this e-mail from Tivo:
TiVoToGo Has Arrived!
So you want to transfer your recorded programs to your PC so you can watch them anywhere, right? Done! As part of your regular paid TiVo service subscription, all TiVo Series2? boxes — except those with DVD recorders — will be automatically updated through a scheduled rollout process to include TiVoToGo?, a brand-new home media feature only available with TiVo service! Remember: you'll need to have your TiVo box connected to your home network for this feature to work.

So I'm guessing they made a deal with someone that to reduce piracy, they wouldn't allow DVD-enabled tivos to copy shows to PC?  But if you have a DVD burner, it sounds like you can already pirate like crazy, right?  Or maybe there's a two way street and they don't want you to be able to copy PC media to your TV which is then burned onto DVD?  I don't get it...

Using an awesome freeware ASP.NET text box component, Shiny Donkey now officially supports rich text posts (with image upload!!!!!!!!).  So far it seems to be working perfectly, but be warned after uploading an image you have to right click on the image area & say "refresh" in order to view it.

Sorry to anyone who lost their session when I just overwrote the DLLs, but hopefully you'll agree it was worth it!

"Baseball's Angels have a new name, and it's a mouthful: The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim."

Well, it seems that Ms. Lohan was not happy with Kelci's aunt's boob job. She has had them removed. Kelci's aunt was not available for comment.

http://www.thesuperficial.com/archives/000560.shtml