A patron collapsed at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas for the second time in two months. The 40-year-old woman was supposedly smoking, drinking a margarita, dancing and eating her “double bypass burger” – basically having a grand old time – when she collapsed. No word on whether it was due to a heart attack, like the previous incident was, but the restaurant, which prides itself on being unhealthy, will most likely not be responsible for any medical bills. The grill is a tourist destination in Vegas for a number of reasons: there’s the famous policy that anyone “over 350 lbs. eats free”; the waitresses dressed up in short, Halloween-style nurses costumes; the required “hospital gowns” for diners; and of course, the food: pats of butter on milkshakes and triple or double-bypass burgers. Dine at your own risk.

Google released the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s report into their Street View service, which collected private data from millions of households. We all love Google Maps – especially Street View, where you can pretend you’re in New York City or LA or Colorado and stroll along the streets – but creating the service came at a cost. While driving around their video-camera equipped cars that collected the images to create the service, Google was also collecting information (called payload data) like names and emails from their private internet connections. Google claims the collection was the act of a “rogue engineer,” but recent intel reveals that multiple members of the team knew what was going on. Google was fined $25,000 for interfering with the investigation (which is pretty much like loose change in Google’s pocket), but the FCC decided that Google didn’t break the law. Still, though. Not cool, Google. Not cool. Read More »

We all remember seeing pictures of Paris Hilton at a club texting on her pink, bedazzled T-Mobile Sidekick phone. Well just as Paris Hilton has changed (her hair is longer), so has the T-Mobile Sidekick.

I got my hands on a T-Mobile Sidekick 4G, and I must say, it’s a pretty cool phone. It’s a texter’s dream. The sliding screen slides up to reveal a full keyboard, which is so much easier than texting on a touch screen (although you have that option as well). It also has Google Speak, so if you hate texting, you can just say what you want to text, and the phone will do the rest for you. It probably won’t pick up on your group of friends’ slang (“omg he’s sooooo adorbs”), but it will pick up on normal words (“I’m so drunk”).

The phone is an Android phone, so you have access to all Android apps. I’ve been playing Fruit Ninja Free in all of my classes to pass time. There’s basically an app for anything you want. You can get radio, Google Maps, Skype and a lot more.

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[There are over 100 million sites on the Internet. 100 million! You might think you know about all the important ones (CollegeCandy, Gmail, Google, TFLN…), but there are thousands of other sweet sites out there (like Unhear It, ReQall, and Regretsy) and more showing up every day! We get it – it’s not easy or fun sifting through the crap and porn to find those gems, so we’re gonna bring the gems to you. Just sit back, kick up those feet and allow us to introduce you to the diamonds in the internet rough.]

College football season is officially under way, and whether or not you actually know anything about the sport, the fact is watching the games and rooting for your school is part of the college experience and a great way to socialize. Plus, what else is there to do on a Saturday?

But what about you recent grads out there?  Unless you still live in your college town (jealous!), you probably won’t get a chance to go to any games.  You could always head to a sports bar to watch the game, but that could get really awkward and/or dangerous if you’re the only one in the bar rooting for your team. (Editor’s Note: True story – poured a beer on a rival’s head once…then was swiftly escorted out.)

Unless you know which bar to go to.

College Bar Finder will help you find a bar that’s friendly to your team in any city, regardless of how far away it is from your college town.

Simply choose your city from a drop-down menu and type in the name of your school in the search bar located on the top of the page, and voila, College Bar Finder will find any and all bars in the selected city that cater to your college team.

There are currently over 1,000 bars in College Bar Finder‘s database, and you can help add more by suggesting any bars you know about that are affiliated with a specific team.

Seriously, how awesome is this site? Now, fans everywhere can come together to root for their favorite team….over drinks….. no matter where they are!

After rolling out of bed this morning I immediately flipped open my Mac Book and signed online. (What? How else are you supposed to begin the day?) And that was when I got the worst news of my life: Google wasn’t working.

I started packing up all my non-perishable items (read: 2 cans of tuna, a bottle of Boones and a bottle of water) to move into my neighbor’s Y2K bunker. Surely the world was coming to an end. I mean, if Google wasn’t working, how would anything else? I was shocked, I was upset, and I was really scared.

I began to imagine my life without Google. A sad, information-less life.

1. I would have no idea how to get anywhere: Before I got Google maps on my iPhone, I got lost in Detroit more times than I can count. And I live in Ann Arbor. How I ended up in Detroit, I’ll never know. How I got out alive is also a mystery. Google maps is. my. life. Without it, I probably really would die.

2. I would have had to blindy talk to someone without knowing anything about them: Whenever I meet someone, the first thing I do is Google them. I don’t even know how to communicate with people without knowing their online history first. How am I supposed to carry on a meaningful conversation with someone if I don’t know where they are from, that they were the captain of the math team in high school and that they were once interviewed for the local news story on the great Quiznos vs. Subway debate.

3. I’d have to leave my house and actually go to the library to write papers: And I don’t even know where the campus library is.

4. I‘d have to figure out another way to find out what people are saying about me: What? You don’t Google yourself? How else am I going to know what people are saying about me if I can’t look myself up online? Eavesdropping is so 20th century.

5. I’d never know just what a whale erection looked like: Not sure why we wanted to know, but we did. If Google was gone, I’d never know.

Thank God everything is back up and running. I’m not sure how long I could have lasted with only one bottle of Boones. I may now return my regularly scheduled self-Googling.

[I used to think I knew everything…until I found myself stranded in the middle of adulthood with no map and no one to guide me when I got lost. I have learned a lot since then - from how to balance a checkbook to how to sew on a button - and will share my wisdom with you.

Every Monday I will be back to teach you how to do something useful, even if it also happens to be completely random. Because, hey, you never know when you just might need to know how to change a tire…or mix a perfect martini.]

I’m off to the Obama inauguration with some friends this weekend, and I am sooo psyched about it. The inauguration itself will be cool, obviously (despite our lack of tickets—we hope), but what will really be cool is the ROAD TRIP!!!!!

There’s nothing better than hitting the road with some pals and feeling your everyday responsibilities and stresses trickle away behind you. Road trips seem to enable a greater sense of freedom than other vacations, and they can be done so spontaneously—just pack up and go, basically.

Still, a little planning goes a long way (both in terms of miles and preparedness). To ensure your road trip is a smashing success, follow these 4 tips.

1. Print directions!

A map is incredibly useful, yes, but it won’t necessarily get you to where you’re going. Some maps have such tiny print that you can’t read anything on them, and other maps aren’t detailed enough to get you back on track when you’re lost. To be safe and save time, use Google Maps or Mapquest to print driving directions for your trip, and designate the person sitting shotgun to be your navigator. Read More »

Move over Crackberry. Step aside, iPhone. There’s a new boy in town and he aims to be bigger and better than his predecessors. (Note: and, no, John McCain didn’t invent this one, either.)

Rumors have been circling for awhile now that Google would be creating a phone, and in just a few days we will finally get to see it. It is called the Dream, which is quite a name to live up to. The information about this badboy is being kept under major lock and key, but many people (read: techy geeks) are sure that this phone will give Apple a run for its money.

If you are really nerdy, like me, you can watch the demo video to see what The Dream has to offer. But if you don’t want to waste 7 minutes, I can sum it up for you:

It looks and acts a lot like the iPhone: touchscreen, internet, Google maps…

I don’t know much about technology, or programming or phones (beyond texting), but I am not sure this Google phone is so revolutionary. I guess I’ll just have to wait until September 23rd to see. For now, I’m holding tight to my iPhone.