Apparently some automatic response systems that companies use on their phones are programmed to respond to the "Dirty 7" words by sending you directly to a human operator. Seems worth a shot next time you feel trapped in endless menus and spoken commands that make no sense to the computer system. I don't think it works with human operators very well though, however satisfying it sometimes may be. I would not recommend trying this tactic at the DMV or airport either.

Lifehacker has a nice piece on Google's new Chrome OS.
The release date is a somewhat vague "later this year"...that always makes me suspicious. We'll see. As long as it's all interoperable, it's fine with me.

Random neat quote:
We don't need hope to survive or success to persevere. Resistance to tyranny is a way of life.
-French WW2 Resistance motto

Wired has a nice side-by-side comparison of the current crop of smartphones. They feature the iPhone, the Pre, the G1, and the Blackberry Storm. I'm a Pre user, but I've used iPhones in the past, as well as G1's, but never a Storm. I'm getting more and more used to webOS on the Pre, and the slide-out keyboard is worth its weight in gold (I cannot stand the iPhone's touchscreen keyboard, it's the main reason I waited for the Pre). I have lots of friends who swear by their iPhones, and another friend who loves his G1. Some things just come down to taste! The lack of apps, so far, on the Pre is a major downer.

We've produced a couple of fruit smoothie videos for 8th Continent Soy Milk, check out the 88-Second video to make Banana Strawberry Frozen Fruit Smoothies, and the Mango Peach Healthy Fruit Smoothies Recipe.

This is a clever use of simple stuff you can find around the house. Spiders are terrific at keeping insect populations low, so squishing them should be the last option...make a spider catcher instead!
I have to admit I've got a soft spot for the creepy crawlies, and underdogs of most types. Spiders are enchanting to me.

This article is fun…it's a step-by-step guide to building your own quality duct tape wallet. Instructables is an all-around great site, if you have any fun fiddling, tinkering, rebuilding and futzing, it's a must-bookmark. Browse around, there's literally hundreds of projects ranging from easy to silly, hard to serious. Enjoy!

After some strenuous effort on behalf of a brand that wasn't within spitting distance of its category leader, we've managed to take step one in making them relevant, by getting 8th Continent Soymilk on page one of the organic Google search results for several terms. Sorry about the blur on the image, but you'll understand I don't feel like shilling the competition.

From here we will go on to bigger, brighter things.

Heineken took a weird step in announcing out loud they don't want agencies not in NYC to try and get their business.From AdAge:

This story immediately caught my eye in my unwieldy "News" feed. The video at the link is pretty awesome, and the auther of the piece raises the questions that popped into my head when I read the headline:

SEOptimise.com has a bit of video up from SES London about what Google ought to do about Black Hat SEO's. While I like some of the answers, and others are compelling, I have trouble with the whole Black/White Hat view of the world. One fellow in the vid correctly points out that most SEO effort is "light grey" anyways. In my view, any SEO that's not totally organic has a "light grey" aspect to it, but SEO can be done ethically, nonetheless. What do you think?