The Wrath of Kon

Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Tag: lists

List: 14 Product Variations That Never Got Past Focus Group Testing

  1. Cap’n Crunch Atlantic Cod Crunch Berries
  2. Olde English 800 Sport malt liquor with electrolytes
  3. Lego Postal Rampage playset
  4. The McDonald’s McHaggis, turnips, and fries value meal
  5. Old Spice Pure Sport scented enema
  6. The Capital One Planned Parenthood Abortion Rewards Visa card
  7. Clorox Cool Ranch Toilet Cleaner
  8. Prune Pepsi Max
  9. Taco Bell CrunchWrap de Tripita
  10. Smith and Wesson My First .357 Junior Revolver
  11. Little Debbie Purim Kreplach cakes with liver
  12. Sherwin Williams Your Mother’s a Whore house paint
  13. Hawaiian Punch Guava Bacon Crush
  14. Jello Pudding Contraceptives

List: possible zombie book ideas for future use

  1. Zombie Jesus
  2. Zombie Ernest Hemingway
  3. Zombie Mama Cass
  4. Zombie Jethro Tull
  5. Zombie Joey Ramone
  6. Zombie Jesse Ventura
  7. Zombie Jerry Lewis
  8. Zombie Veterinarian
  9. Zombie Les Paul
  10. Zombie Ayn Rand
  11. Zombie Kim Jong Il
  12. Zombie Slum Landlord
  13. Zombie Transvestite hooker picked up by Eddie Murphy
  14. Zombie Illegal immigrant
  15. Zombie Midlist genre author
  16. Zombie Tax preparation assistant
  17. Zombie Hipster taco truck worker
  18. Zombie Indian casino blackjack dealer
  19. Zombie Pro-Microsoft internet troller
  20. Zombie Weatherman
  21. Zombie French-Canadian baguette baker
  22. Zombie Has-been child actor turned junkie
  23. Zombie Build engineer
  24. Zombie Incontinent old person
  25. Zombie Herpes sufferer riding a mountain bike in a drug commercial
  26. Zombie Civil War re-enactor
  27. Zombie Cooking show hostess you want to slap but you also want to fuck
  28. Zombie Death metal fan who has really long hair but is bald on the top
  29. Zombie Wal-Mart greeter
  30. Zombie Blind guy who plays accordion on the subway for change
  31. Zombie Larry King
  32. Zombie High school gym teacher
  33. Zombie Al Bundy
  34. Zombie Editor at Huffington Post who posts content from other places as if they are new news.
  35. Zombie Ruby on Rails developer who talks about how great the ORM model is but doesn’t acknowledge scalability issues.
  36. Zombie Used car salesman
  37. Zombie Fred Flintstone
  38. Zombie Alexander Haig
  39. Zombie Eli Whitney with interchangeable parts
  40. Zombie Herbalife salesman who posts Zombie “Lose Weight Now/Ask Me How” signs at grocery store.
  41. Zombie Tattoo artist
  42. Zombie Guy who always insists that autotuning is killing the music industry
  43. Zombie Congressional Budget Office Assistant Director of Health and Zombie Services Division
  44. Zombie Yoga teacher with really hot ass
  45. Zombie Dog show groomer
  46. Zombie House painter
  47. Zombie David Lee Roth
  48. Zombie Left-Handed Setup Pitcher
  49. Zombie Alien abduction survivor
  50. Zombie Steven Spielberg

(Feel free to use any of these, but please let me know if you write a book or screenplay based on them.)

List: Countries That Don't Extradite, With Best Broadband And Mercedes Dealerships

pa280068

The following is a list of the top 25 countries that do not have extradition treaties with the United States, ranked by broadband scores (Broadband ranking here, using download speeds only) and indicating if they have a Mercedes dealership.

(Note: Taiwan currently has a treaty underway. I also could not find broadband scores for the four countries with no diplomatic relations with the US or extradition treaties: Iran, Cuba, Bhutan, and North Korea. Bhutan and North Korea also do not have Mercedes dealerships.)

CountryBroadband RankMercedes Dealership?
United Arab Emirates20Yes
Andorra24No
the Russian Federation27Yes
Mongolia37Yes
Taiwan39Yes
Vietnam54Yes
Saudi Arabia65Yes
Rwanda69No
the Maldives77No
Oman78Yes
Qatar79Yes
China80Yes
Montenegro84No
Kuwait87Yes
Serbia90Yes
Mozambique94No
Bosnia/Herzegovina98Yes
Cape Verde102No
Uganda105No
Brunei111Yes
Armenia114Yes
Bahrain116Yes
Cambodia125Yes
Libya126No
Tunisia127No

Projects eating my time

I typically have some windmill I’m chasing, eating all of my spare cycles with google searches.  At some point, there’s going to be some huge lawsuit and google is going to be forced to release all of its search data to people like the way we now buy our credit reports, and I’m going to look back and wonder why I searched for Amiga 500 hardware 48,757 times in mid-2002.  Anyway, here are a bunch of recent brain viruses that are consuming me:

  • Is there a way to install track lighting without a ceiling fixture?  I’m looking for some magical system that will either draw power straight from the air in some Tesla-like fashion, or a way to conceal a cord so it runs across the ceiling and down a wall, maybe behind a bookcase.  I don’t know.
  • I need to build a kitchen island.  I think Ikea has the cabinets, but I also think they have a $1400 minimum on their engineered stone surfaces.  How do you get that crap built, and am I looking at a twelve-week wait time?   I thought we were in a recession and all of the trade people were dying for work?  If so, why don’t any of them return my phone calls?  And why do I ever need to make a phone call?  Why can’t all of this shit be online?
  • Searching for the perfect KVM switch to connect a MacBook Pro (mini-DisplayPort) and a ThinkPad (DisplayPort) to a monitor with DVI input.  It amazes me that it’s 2010 and 90% of the KVM solutions out there are still PS/2 keyboard/mouse and VGA that caps out at like 1280x1024.  That’s like if I went to a local new car dealership and every model still had a hand crank.
  • I keep searching eBay for NeXT hardware.  I need to stop doing that.
  • How do you repackage a 16-bit InstallShield installer so it works in Windows 7?  Why can’t you just use a 16-bit installer in Windows 7?  I thought the whole deal with Windows was you trade off usability and performance and reliability for the fact that they still need to support decades-old legacy software.  So why does a five-year-old installer crap out on me?  (Yes I tried running it in compatibility mode.)
  • Has anyone ever written an online version of Advanced Squad Leader?
  • I need to learn Python to use this mythical scripting extension to FrameMaker, but I also fear that said extension won’t be able to script 90% of the application, so maybe I don’t need to learn Python.
  • I need to buy/build/find a new entertainment system for the TV.  One that doesn’t look stupidly small with a 17’ ceiling, but that doesn’t cost more than my car.  Maybe the Ikea Besta.
  • I also need to find a medicine chest for the downstairs bathroom that doesn’t look like it came out of a mobile home and that isn’t some old country kitchen Paula Deen looking bullshit.
  • Didn’t someone make a vertical docking station for the new MacBook Pro or did I hallucinate that?  And not some little metal clippy stand that cost 17 cents to make in China and retails for $79.

That is all.