Woot® : One Day, One Deal™

We Are Officially Out Of Ideas

Gentlemen, I don’t think I need to tell you that we here at Detective Clocks have a bit of a crisis on our hands.

It’s getting tougher and tougher to sell clocks out there, people. We’ve lost the kids, lost the small amount of women due to over-sexualization and the lack of diversity in clock making. Sadly, our main demographic are men in their thirties who’d rather talk about how our BatClocks were better years ago, how they could make a better SuperClocks, and mocking our poor, beloved AquaClocks on the Internet.

The good news is we’ve managed to keep these horrid fanboys buying our products through a combination of recycled clock making and nostalgia. We’ve done large scale crossovers, alternate reality versions, and we’ve nearly killed and resurrected nearly every clock we make. We’ve even taken to rebooting out entire warehouse every few years or so. Now, the well of ideas has run dry. That, combined with our inability to create anything new and meaningful, may break us entirely.

Maybe now is the time we start taking risks, we told ourselves. Maybe we can use this lull to try original, bold ideas in our clocks. Maybe we should stop following the whims of an unknowable bunch of basement dwellers and strike out in a brave new direction.

And then we remembered we still had the rights to that much-loved Watch Men series of clocks from twenty-five years ago and figured we hadn’t milked that for all it’s worth.

So here’s what we’re going to do: we’re going to tell the story of what happened BEFORE the Watch Men through these Invicta Men’s Vintage Watches. People familiar with the Swiss quartz movements and flame-fusion crystal will immediately be interested in returning to the stylish elegance of the past! And the fanboys that scream in all caps in the forums won’t be able to fight the quality components that make up each one, from the bold metallic dial with silver-toned hour markers right down to the black leather watch strap and stainless steel buckle clasp! We simply can’t lose!

Until this Previous To Watch Men series is over and we’re left with nothing again. Don’t worry, though. We’re planning a line of SandClocks as we speak. Trust me; it’s a better idea than anything Marvel Clocks has come up with recently.

read more...

January has the big college bowl games, and March has its madness. But when it comes to sports, February is no slouch either. Since 2004, the Super Bowl’s been a February game. There’s the NBA All-Star weekend. Every four years, there’s even a February Olympics. There’s no Winter Olympics this year to brighten your February, so we’ve asked Jeopardy! mega-champ Ken Jennings to show off his jock side and throw a flag on some deeply cherished sports facts you thought you knew. Nobody takes more pride than sports fans in knowing their stuff—but as we’ll see, they’re not always right.

Sports Myth #1: In Baseball, the Tie Goes to the Runner

Everyone knows this, from Little League dads to aggrieved fans heckling major league umps. If the call is too close at a base to be sure, the runner’s safe, right? Well, not so fast, sports fans. Let’s take a look at the major league rulebook.

Rule 6.05 (j) states that “A batter is out when, after a third strike or after he hits a fair ball, he or first base is tagged before he touches he first base” (my italics). So in the case of a batter running to first, the tag has to get there before he does. A simultaneous arrival, then, would go to the runner. But wait! Just a few pages later comes Rule 7.01. “A runner acquires the right to an unoccupied base when he touches it before he is out.” So I guess in the case of the other three bases, it’s the other way around, and the runner needs to get there before the tag? In that case, the tie would go the fielder. We’ve figured it out. But then Rule 7.08 (e) messes everything up again: “Any runner is out when he or the next base is tagged before he touches the next base.”

So what have we learned? First, that the major league rulebook makes the tax code look simple and well-designed. Second, that both the tag and the runner have to get there before the other. The rules are silent on what to do if, heaven forbid, they happen in the same split second. Veteran crew chief Tim McLelland told MLB.com, “That is exactly right. There are no ties. . . . So you have to make the decision.” Tom Hanks once announced that there’s no crying in baseball. It turns out there’s no tying either.

Quick Quiz: In what game is a tie sometimes called a “cat’s game”? 

Ken Jennings is the author of Brainiac, Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac, and Maphead. He's also the proud owner of an underwhelming Bag o' Crap. Follow him at ken-jennings.com or on Twitter as @KenJennings.

Photo by Photography Perspectives - Jeff Smith / Shutterstock.com.

read more...

It's Happy Snacking!, our recurring feature that teaches you the skills you need to make our signature handcrafted, fit-for-human-consumption foodstuffs. Never go hungry between meals again!

read more...

Today's Music Monday is a break from our standard "five examples of" form, but we're doing it with good reason. Today we're celebrating the birthday of a man who found himself caught in the middle of a phenomenon and handled it correctly. He didn't take it too seriously, he didn't start suing people, and he basically stayed out of the way and let it happen around him. In return, the mobs of Internet took care of him, and today his signature hit is STILL getting attention. We recommend you click the image below to RickRoll yourself in his honor:

More than any other artist this side of Tay Zonday and OK Go, the great Rick Astley proves the Internet can make you a household name if you just play along. And today he turns 46! So Happy Birthday to you, our golden voiced giant. We're pretty sure that you and the digital generation are gonna be together forever.

This post's shorter than usual but it's still Music Monday. Join us in the TurntableFM room to celebrate Rick's birthday, and maybe play some other stuff too. Hope to see you there?

read more...

Hide This Person

With settings specifically for photos of food, pets, and the beach, you can annoy your Facebook friends like never before.

At first I didn’t understand all the hostile comments. “Thanks, I REALLY care about what you have for dinner EVERY SINGLE DAY,” said one college classmate under a photo of my delicious shrimp risotto.

“omg we get it u hav cats jeeze”: that barb from my cousin (also named Barb) was the only comment posted to a picture of Tiago and Snarl, my two Maine Coons, lounging on the dryer. And when I put up some photos of my trip to South Padre Island, this guy I used to work with went through and posted “IDIOT” to every single one. Why so harsh, you know?

But now that I have an Olympus VR-320, I totally get it. Those people were mad about my food, cat, and beach pics because my old camera just wasn’t doing them justice.

Well, they can stop complaining. It won’t just be the 14MP resolution and 12.5X optical zoom that will bring my shots to life. The VR-320’s 14 scene modes include Cuisine, Pet, and Beach & Snow. So my Facebook friends can look forward to seeing much, much more of Tiago and Snarl, and my upcoming spring break at Sanibel, and my continuing exploration of Epicurious – and in more detail than ever before.

Enjoy them while you can, guys. Because pretty soon I won’t have time to do many of those things. That’s right – Mike and I are pregnant! Do you think baby pictures should use Portrait mode, or would that still be considered Pet?

read more...

Call of Pavilion.

From one HP to another: “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh HP Pavilion wgah’nagl fhtagn!”

We exist, in all our teeming grandeur, on nothing more than a small marble careening through an endless, nightmarish abyss. In relation to such a grand scope we are but micro-organisms clinging to a single grain of sand, touting our superiority and marveling at all that we rule over. But the sciences continue to expand our infinitesimal knowledge in minuscule fits and starts, and as our eyes grow accustomed to the yawning black sea of infinity before us I only pray that we keep our wits about us when faced with the terrifying vistas of reality, our frightful position therein, and that the true masters of this realm have taken notice of our small, tinny voices in the night.

Recently I have glimpsed the true and horrible nature of the cosmic cycle, and truly it has chilled me to my soul. Reports of a strange cult, presided over by strange druids of night howling demonic chants and wails at the stars from the still, cursed woods outside of town drew my curiosity most profoundly. In my continuing and extensively thorough research on the cult I found increasing numbers of seemingly unrelated events from around the world. Unbeknownst to authorities and overlooked by those parties charged with investigating, a single fact united each news clipping: at each site, no matter how grisly or horrific the events reported, a refurbished HP Pavilion p6-2003w Desktop PC was found.

Despite its seemingly modern components like a 6-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader, Windows 7 Home Premium, and 4GB DDR3 SDRAM memory, the obsidian towers were far from modern in atmosphere and suggestion. The impressionistic execution of its construction forbade any clear idea of its nature. It seemed to be a sort of symbol representing a monster, a form of which only a diseased fancy could conceive and the general outline of which I found to be shockingly frightful.

I cannot elaborate on such monstrosities, save to say that I hope these ominous signals shall go with this record of mine – buried and locked away safely. I have seen all that the universe has to hold of horror, and all of life’s riches: even the spring sunlight and warm fires of winter, shall be poison to my mind. As all those who have uncovered this secret before me have gone, so I shall go. I know too much, and the cult of HP still lives.

read more...

Baby, I’m sorry.

As a show of good faith and contrition in light of my infidelity, I’ve gotten you a gift.

“I can’t believe you thought you could bribe me with-”

“It’s not a bribe! It’s a gift! It’s a gift to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ and ‘Thank you for sticking with me despite my incredibly poor judgment.’ It’s a 64GB Apple iPad!”

“It’s refurbished!”

“It’s APPLE RECERTIFIED! That’s different! That’s better! You can play games and download apps and surf the web. Come on, I know you’ve wanted one of these!”

“Kobe’s wife got a huge diamond.”

“Well, if I had Kobe’s money you would too, okay? But I’m not working with Kobe money. And I guarantee if Kobe was a mid-tier Systems Administrator this is what he would buy his wife after drunkenly kissing his college girlfriend at a reunion dinner, okay?”

read more...

Welcome back to The United States of Songs, my quest to either find a new song to represent each state in the union or drive myself insane trying to turn these out week in and week out, whichever comes first. Come along with me, dear reader, to the Buckeye State!

The state: Ohio
The song: "O-H-I-O" by Ohio Players

read more...

Nothing's more important than family. Not speeding cars, not acid-spitting aliens, not spaceships with a ridiculous number of guns attached to the front, not anything. That's why you don't see any of that stuff we just listed in All That Matters. Instead, you'll see this:

Walter's a nice fella who looks like the dude on the Pringles' can, and he's a traditional kind of guy. Throughout the course of the game, he's looking to reconnect with his family. You've got to roll Walter and his clan around the various levels, solving puzzles and picking up hearts. The more hearts they get, the more levels you unlock.

Walter's also got a son, a baby, a wife and a crazy dad, all of whom roll differently. Sometimes you've got to save only one of them to complete a level. Sometimes you've got to save a few. Things get a little simpler once you're used to jumping with the up arrow instead of the more-traditional spacebar. But other than that, All That Matters is just challenging enough to be fun. Until you hit this level right here:

From there on, the levels get hard and stay hard. But if you get stuck, don't worry! Fail three times in a row and the game will invite you to skip ahead and struggle out the stragglers later.

If you're really serious about this game you'll find a wall of badges you can collect while you push for greater success, plus three bonus levels to unlock just for fun. If you try to 100% everything, All That Matters is pretty doggone challenging. But if you just want to kill some time at your desk and roll a family back together, All That Matters should prove a nice time-waster for a Friday afternoon. Tip for office types: hit mute before you click through, because you can't turn off the sound until after the opening credits.

read more...

Shooting the Dead

Jeez, can we get one minute of footage without some paranormal stuff messing everything up?!

Cut! Cut! Cut! No Ryan, there’s nothing wrong with your delivery. Your muffled crying was perfect! It’s just that whispering voice in the wind again. You know, talking about “all who enter be warned” and “ye all shall bear witness” etc., etc.

Man, I would kill my location scout for getting us a haunted house, but then again, another ghost in this place and we’ll never get this movie done! I mean, what am I supposed to do with all this footage? It’s worthless! No one would ever buy it!

I figured, with this Samsung SwitchGrip HD Camcorder with 10x Schneider-Kreuznach Lens, I’d have no problem finishing this shoot. It can capture video in 1920 x 1080/60i HD. It’s got Optical Image Stabilization. It features a a 5MP BSI CMOS sensor, which dramatically reduces noise and distortion while also enhancing recording quality in low-light condition. What could possibly go wrong, right?

Well, as it turns out, everything. And no, that wasn’t a joke, weird, echoing, maniacal laughter!

I just wanted to make a film, roughly 3 hours long, about a young husband and wife who buy an old house, fix it up (which would be the first hour and a half or so), in doing so realize the flaws in their relationship, and then go through a grueling divorce (the second hour and a half). That’s the kind of movie that people want to see.

They don’t want to see big, bright orbs appearing out of nowhere. They don’t want to see the eyes of a painting following the characters around the room. They don’t want to see the wife scream and run through the hallways being chased by a knife flying through the air as if propelled by its own volition. Movies are about exploring taboos, not scaring people.

Anyway, it sounds like the whispering’s died down, and the laughter’s trailed off to a chuckle. If we pick it up, who cares; we’ll just have to fix it in post. Sorry for ranting there, guys. Seriously, it’s been amazing working with you, Ryan, and you, Clarissa, and you too disembodied skull… oh, for crying out loud!

No, Clarissa, don’t scream! You’re just egging them on!

read more...