Yald Patrick Grote's Blog

Top 50 Scariest Movies

io9 is a great site and they produced a list of the top 50 scariest movies. They didn't provide a simple, formatted, sequential list. This is frustrating for someone who wants to hunt down the movies at the library.

Here is the simple list:

• 50. Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)
• 49. An American Werewolf In London (1981)
• 48. Midnight Meat Train (2008)
• 47. Re-Animator (1985)
• 46. Cat People (1942)
• 45. La Conquête du Pôle ("The Conquest of the Pole") (1912)
• 44. The Birds (1963)
• 43. The Blob (1958)
• 42. The Crazies (2010)
• 41. The Mist (2007)
• 40. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
• 39. Hellraiser (1987)
• 38. Frankenstein (1931)

Netflix is expiring a ton of movies on 1/1/12

I was looking for something to watch on Netflix tonight and decided to start at instantwatcher.com. They break down the netflix streams that are expiring or new.

It appears hundreds of them are expiring on 1/1/12.

Netflix is losing Starz on 2/1/12, but I have no idea what is going on. I confirmed the expiration by looking at the show/movie pages on Netflix.

If this turns out to be the case it's going to be hard for Netflix to keep their customers.

Low Carb Pumpkin Pie with Walnut Crust Easy

My nutrition centers on low carb eating, so I am always looking for great recipes. As Thanksgiving is tomorrow, I prepared by clicking on my bookmark for low carb pumpkin pie. You can guess my surprise when a Japanese 404 error appeared. The original domain and location of recipegal.com lapsed and a squatter bought it.

Thanks to Archive.Org here is the original recipe. If the person who originally wrote this wants it removed, please let me know.

Siobhan's Low Carb Pumpkin Pie with Walnut Crust
Makes 1 nine-inch regular depth pie (not deep dish)

Crust

• 1.5 cups finely chopped walnuts (almost powder, but not paste)
• 3 tbsp butter, softened
• 3 tbsp Splenda (must be sucralose, other artificial sweeteners can't be baked)

Where to find the newest and expiring netflix streaming

I love our netflix subscription. If you have a family you'll come to quickly realize that everyone has a say in what is streamed. Have a toddler? You'll get a ton of use of the streaming. Dora, bob the builder and more become your everyday pals.

Netflix just modified their website interface and it sucks. Hard.

There are three sites that allow you to look at the latest and expiring streams.

Streaming Soon - This site does a very good job of showing you the latest and expering streams in an easy to view layout. What I like about this site is the clean interface and an easy way to see everything at once. There is very little control of the streams outside of the best and worst upcoming and expiring.

A great example of irony weather related

Everyone online can argue about the proper version of irony. You can go with the Shakespeare version or the Alanis Morissette take, but there is usually never any agreement.

I think we can all agree that this weather related news item is ironic:

The NOAA weather alert radio system was shut down on Sunday after an apparent lightning strike, according to the National Weather Service.

The weather station, which broadcasts weather information 24-hours a day, was silenced around 2:30 a.m. and remains out of service. Many people rely on the radios for weather alerts, such as tornado warnings.

The radio system designed to warn against inclement weather taken out by inclement weather.

Laziest accused thief ever? Adam Barker

Adam Barker is facing five counts of theft without consent. Yeah, I don't know if you can steal with consent, but whatever.

Police say Barker did the following:

• Sold two of his girlfriend's cars on Craigslist.
• Sold a car from his girlfriend's friend on Craigslist.

Allegedly, after he sold the stolen items, his girlfriend called those who purchased the items to let them know they were stolen.

It wasn't the first time this happened, as he was accused and found guilty of stealing from the same girlfriend in 2009.

Seriously, if he did do this you have to wonder what he was thinking.

Top rated movies on Netflix

I love Netflix and their streaming options. We cut the cord a few years ago and Netflix is a big reason why.

Paul Tarjan created something that has been needed for a long time ... a mashup between IMDB and Netflix that shows available movies ranked in the top 250.

Netflix makes it hard to find good movies based on external lists. They have severely curtailed their ability to share information among friends, so you have to mine for the movies you want. This list is awesome!

This is a perfect application. If Paul decides to do more I'd like to see:

Led Zeppelin live – YouTube Fail

YouTube is great for finding music, especially older music. You can go on there and see bands live when they were hot in the 60s, 70s or 80s.

Obviously, some bands are better than others.

I did come across The Ocean by Led Zeppelin in a live performance. It was posted several years back and has 4.2 million views. It rocked and I wanted to share it, but you cannot embed it.

This raises a separate issue, but is a fail also. Why the heck do you control embedding like that? Really? It is embedded at the bottom of this post, but you'll have to jump on YouTube to watch it.

Anyway, the fail comes here in the yellow highlighted area. Your first reaction is going to be humor:

Help! Zombies are attacking my house

Zombie movies are my favorite horror genre. For some reason I think it is the most realistic apoclyptic outcome. Yeah, I know it has no basis in reality, but man, they are scary.

It's good to know the folks at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) are on the case. They've developed guidelines to help us prepare for the coming zombie hordes.

(Before anyone gets in an uproar over taxpayer money being spent on this, the zombies are used as a way to ensure people have emergency supplies for any disaster. Zombies are used as the attention getter.)

The article is hilarious, but I found the following to be the best part:

Internet favorites listed through five years experience

Reddit is a wonderful resource and I find the community the most valuable part. They are always sharing, over sharing and just plain babbling. There is gold, though, and I came across a great one.

Someone posted the best links they've come across in the last five years.

Think about this. Someone has been on Reddit for five years, the site is only six years old, and they compiled their favorite links from that time. It is like walking through an internet time machine that someone pre-programmed with awesome.

My favorites include:

Acme School - Great videos explaining a variety of topics.

Movable Periodic Table - My goal in life is to have a wall hanging that contains samples of all known elements.