I was up until 10:30 last night fast-forwarding through football just to get to the commercials.  If I had only known that MSN Video would have put all the commercials up on their web page for easy viewing.  One question... do they get extra money from the advertisers for doing it?  I noticed they weren't able to get them all for some reason.

My top 5:
5.  The mystery of Hammer's disappearance
4.  Burt Reynolds getting kicked in the jimmy
3.  A new action figure for my collection
2.  P Diddy driving sales of the latest must-have star ride

and

1.  Monkeys and fart jokes?  Home run

Ah... Ad Critic, we barely knew you.

The broadband world has been here for a while but getting good content over the net is still not a simple matter.  Where's that on-demand, world-wide entertainment network we've been promised?

Well, for you fans of Indian movies there is now a site for you which allows you to download digital copies of movies.  Movies like Raincoat which your local movie store will never carry... or new releases like Dhoom which even aren't yet available on Netflix.  Not only are the latest movies available but you can get them much faster than driving to your local video store and way faster than Blockbuster Online.

If movies with people randomly bursting in to song and dance are your cup of tea, then check out Masala Downloads (http://www.masaladownloads.com).

If, on the other hand, Jean-Claude Van Damme is your cup of tea... simply switch on Spike TV... he's sure to show up at some point.

This quote was given to Fareed Zakaria, the international editor for Newsweek, by an Iraqi politician:

"There are currently two Grand Ayatollahs running Iraq: Sistani and Bush. Most of us feel that Sistani is the more rational."

Fareed wrote an optimistic opinion piece about Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the effects of his leadership in Iraq.  It's a good read.

Steev (no, not a typo) is a ton of fun... apparently too much fun for a single web page.

• http://spaces.msn.com/members/steev/
• http://homepage.mac.com/sjanssen/
• http://www.steevil.com/
• http://steevil.textamerica.com/

Aparently he needs more to do.

While working on the Hotmail schedule I discovered that my worth as a PM has been diminished now that I'm a lead.  I know it's true, our project management software, used for scheduling work, proves it. 

Computers can't lie, right?

Er... creative and just plain weird.

Dip a maggot in paint and watch it wander across a page.  Use different colors of paint and you get...

wait for it...

Maggot Art!

The description on their web page really sounds much more wholesome:

Maggot Art™ is a fantastic new teaching tool for use in the elementary school setting.  Children get hands-on experience with insects that most people find truly disgusting -- maggots -- while creating a beautiful piece of artwork to share with others.

Found on Kukla's blog.

There's a quick and easy step you can take: turn your junk e-mail filter from "Low" to "Enhanced".  At the lowest level Hotmail will delete the known junk e-mail before it even lands in your account.  There are, however, clever filters that deal with junk e-mail we haven't heard of yet... when you switch from "Low" to "Enhanced" you get the added benefit of Hotmail moving the mail we're not quite sure about into the junk e-mail folder for you to examine later.

To help protect yourself from junk e-mail:

Turn your junk e-mail filter to "Enhanced"

Cranking it up from low is the difference between "we know this is junk" and "we think this is junk." Hotmail gets rid of the things we know are junk... the things we think are junk we move to the junk e-mail folder... but only if your filter is set to "Enhanced."

Add your friends' e-mail addresses to your address book

You can import, use the contacts builder feature on the contacts page or simply check the box on the sent mail confirmation page.

Add other addresses to your safe list

Adding amazon.com addresses to your safe list but not your address book keeps your address book tidy but makes sure you receive your e-mails from Amazon.

When you receive junk e-mail in your inbox, select the junk e-mail and click the "junk" button

When you report the junk we missed the junk e-mail automatically goes into a system which trains our filters to be better in the future (be patient, though, it does take some time for the filters to learn, you won't see an immediate effect, but like exercise, it works over time).

Check your e-mail every day

This sound funny but it is really more of a psychological trick than anything else. If you check your Hotmail account every day you'll find that the amount of junk in your inbox is quite small and easy to deal with. When you take the task in small bites it's easier to stomach (and frankly, quite painless).

To turn your junk e-mail filter from 1 to 11:

1. Sign into Hotmail
2. Click the "Mail" tab
3. Click the "Options" link (it's at the top right, near "Help")
4. Click the "Junk E-Mail Protection" link
5. Click the "Junk E-Mail Filter" link
6. Select the "Enhanced" level
7. Click the "OK" button
8. Get less spam in your inbox

Too many steps? Try my direct link to your Junk E-Mail Filter Options.

No, it's not that questionable appetizer your Aunt Mildred serves...

it's playing table hockey...

with nuts...

against squirrels.

A hint, you get bonus points for hitting the squirrels in the naughty bits.

Enjoy! table nutball