Author Archives: Brian Alvey

This morning in Norway, two masked armed robbers stole Edvard Munch’s famous movie poster painting of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. There wasn’t much security in the museum — the thieves just plucked the paintings off of the walls and walked out the front door to their escape car. Our local Applebee’s bolts three-dollar postersContinue reading “Munch and run”

Last month, officials at several military bases were concerned about the security risks of a Coca-Cola contest that rigged Coke cans with cell phones and GPS chips. The NSA and Army bases including Fort Knox declared these cans a threat to security and advised engineers and soldiers to examine their soda in advance and to leave themContinue reading “No can do”

Our latest blog, Blogging Baby, covers babies, baby. It’s serious news about kids’ stuff. Early versions of the site featured background audio with Dick Vitale saying things like “diaper dandies” and “bay-bee,” but my meds kicked in and we launched audio-free.

I turned on Blues Clues and it was a huge disappointment. I was expecting a CBS-style drama — like CSI or Without a Trace — starring guitar heroes like B.B. King and Eric Clapton. It turns out the show is about a cartoon dog and a goofy live action guy who solve puzzles with aContinue reading “The thrill is gone”

In a recent comment, the otherwise likeable Photomatt gave me grief for having a single table in my HTML for Weblogs, Inc. layouts: I would love to see the designs stop using table layouts from the late 90s. 😉 The sites actually use a great fluid CSS+XHTML rounded corners layout and were table-free until a few monthsContinue reading “Periodic table usage”

Since my blog is one of the top results for searches on “man I feel like a woman chevy commercial” (okay, it’s the number one result), I figured I should be the one to announce our newest Weblogs, Inc. site: Autoblog. It’s packed with news for anyone interested in cars, trucks and everything in between andContinue reading “Get your motor running, Autoblog”

I was on a site that still serves banner ads earlier today — one of the ten remaining sites that hasn’t switched to Google AdWords — and I saw an ad that started out completely white. Slowly a bunch of letters rotated in place to reveal the message, “Seize the week.” In the next frame,Continue reading “Seize the week!”

I remember it like it was yesterday: “On May 17, 1814, the Norwegian Constitution was signed, giving Norway independence from its 500 year union with Denmark. That request came from his wife. Deep down he knew she was right. But he also knew that someday he would return to her. With nowhere else to go,Continue reading “Syttende Mai”

As I watched Derek Jeter toss a ball to a young Yankees fan who was sitting front row at Fenway Park this afternoon, I imagined that the kid might go home thinking Derek Jeter is his new best friend. Maybe he’ll get calls from Derek on his cell phone, but Derek will have to suddenlyContinue reading “Darby Conley is my best friend”

In November of 2001, I was the best man in a wedding at The Ocean Club in the Bahamas. It was scheduled to be an outdoor wedding, but a hard rain was falling and a hurricane was only days away. The hurricane would hit after we had safely traveled home and wipe out enough of the clubContinue reading “The Dune Breakfast and The McGriddle”