Currently playing on my earbuds: "Teenage Kicks" by the Undertones. Currently sloshing around in my gut: my third can of Coke Zero so far today. Currently on my torso: ?????????? ??????????? ???? ????????! Currently open in my Firefox tabs:

• Gotta love the British press...the Daily Mail takes a stab at visualizing what Michael Jackson would look like today without plastic surgery. (As seen at Gawker.)
• What parts of the body are mentioned most often in songs? Fleshmap's "Listen" project answers the question for different musical genres. No points for guessing what body part turns up most often in hip-hop songs. Includes some small NSFW images. (Found at Andrew Sullivan.)
• There's some controversy over whether this converted truck mobile home is actually a "garbage truck", but it's no less cool either way.
• I'm always a sucker for pre-WWII color photos, and these shots from around Depression-era America are pretty amazing.
• If you're ever incarcerated, try imitating one of these 10 amazing prison escapes.
• Ooh, I want these pieces of awesome children's furniture in my home. Won't someone think of the children? My children, specifically?
• Painter Liu Bolin paints Chinese citizens so they blend in with their backgrounds. (Another one from Andrew Sullivan - I don't usually double-link in one WWWoundup, but these were too good.)

Four O'Clock Flash: in a novel twist, Boombot requires you to set off bombs around the titular robot - not to destroy it, but to move it around.

This week our talented Photochoppers were to lead us on a magical tour through a Las Vegas festooned with Woot.com!'s dark and disturbing influences by Showing us your ideas for a Woot Casino. Although Las Wootvas is all about winning and losing, at times we find ourselves at an impasse- on the horns of a dilemma, facing a Hobson's choice, with the only side being the downside if we selected one chop over another of equally high quality. So, we bailed. We asked Jason if we could award a tie for first place, and without even checking with Dave, as far as we know, he agreed! Accordingly, because the two chops we felt to be the best really had little to separate them, we awarded first place to both.

First Place - $100 (tie)
mwiseman - TooNeon
Not just a casino, but a casino resort! Now maybe we can all see those winning signs they said they were going to put up after that sign contest.


also see:
mwiseman's wonderful Robotic Stage Mistakes Show, complete with giant raptor mauling.

First Place - $100 (tie)
rascal514 - Woot Casino
Really, can't you see this casino in your mind's eye, right in there among the other great casinos of Las Vegas- The giant Best Buy BentoBox casino, the Sam's Gentlemen's Club (members only, of course), the Yahoo! Sellout Dollar Slots, and, of course, eBet, where everyone stays in their hotel rooms and submits bets over the wireless internet.


Second Place - $50
plinth - Woot!netian Drink Menu
Plinth fortunately gave us a glimpse into the upscale Vegas that he finds each time the Plinth.com convention rolls into town.


Third Place - $20
CabooseGT - One Game, One Day
This, this is how the woot casino plans to become a tax loss for the Woot investors' financial needs. One slot, each day. Click the pic for a bigger jackpot.


Honorable Mentions
FedUpOldHag - Woot Buffet
Boy, what a crappy selection in this buffet- there isn't even any ThunderPanda in Peanut Sauce.


cicada - Potty Slots
Uh, excuse us for a moment...


ActorTom - Payouts Quarterly
As if. Vegas, where naive dreams are shattered by the cold reality of lazy copywriters/contest supervisors.


toby8915 - Now There's a Dealer!
I hope we all appreciate what a brave woman Shan was to allow this one to be redisplayed!


faithcoaching - I wonder if this chair will hold up?
Speaking of a festive Brave Woman...


Monkey Prize
rascal514 - Welcome to Woot! Vegas
Yep, from the sublime to the ridiculous, rascal514 started out flush on his trip to Vegas, only to end up here, in the gutter, wet, dank, without that $100 we just gave him (lost it to the Woot! slot machine) and corrupted by the stain of failure slowly spreading from that matted, piebald monkey, his only remaining companion.


Money winners, please email your Paypal info to jtoon@woot.com. Monkey Prize winner, please email your shipping address to jtoon@woot.com. Honorable Mentioneers may use coupon code HONMEN-FS for free shipping on a future order. Then, when the code doesn't work, you can try emailing service@woot.com and if you're pleasant about it, they'll usually credit you for the code. Until next time, remember, whatever you won in Vegas, stays in Carrollton, until the next corporate quarter rolls around, at least.

How long do you think it should take to prepare a five pound Boston Butt? If you?re a Red Sox fan, the answer might be ?as long as it takes to pull on a clean pair of boxers?. But if you?ve got an Orion Stainless Steel Convection Outdoor Cooker, the answer is three hours and thirty minutes.

You see, the Orion Stainless Steel Convection Outdoor Cooker uses an innovative two-step process of convection and steam to cook your dish of choice fully and quickly. A twenty pound turkey in a little more than two hours. A three pound salmon filet in just thirty minutes. A bag of pizza rolls in? well, that isn?t on the list, but it would probably take about three or four minutes. More or less. We?re kinda estimating, you know.

The Orion Stainless Steel Convection Outdoor Cooker is the answer to the ultimate question of outdoor cooking: ?How can I do as little as possible on this vacation and still be able to eat non-stop?? If you can add charcoal, light a match, and sit down, you can handle the Orion. If you can?t, maybe it?s better you starve. We?re sorry, but we?ve got to think of the species as a whole.

With your Orion Stainless Steel Convection Outdoor Cooker you?ll be getting three rib hangers, three cooking grates, and poultry stand with lifting handle that can hold a 24 pound turkey. Clean up is easy (unless some idiot tried to make pizza rolls) and it?s easy to add wood for that extra smokey taste. And if you want to make a marinade, you can do that too!

Pretend you had a choice to make. Would you rather die screaming while being mauled by a tiger that was eating you raw or slowly drift away on a pillow of steam, knowing you were being lovingly prepared to bring joy to others in a stadium parking lot? Easy answer, right? So why not give your food the same respect? Treat it to an Orion Stainless Steel Convection Outdoor Cooker.

Warranty: 3 Year Orion

Features:

• Outdoor convection cooker that uses three cooking processes simultaneously: convection, steam and smoke, no oil needed
• Uses 100% indirect heat to create a convection current, there is absolutely no cooking maintenance with drastically reduced cook time
• Smoke six racks of ribs in 1 hour and 15 minutes, or a twenty pound turkey in 2 hours and 15 minutes
• Accommodates 6 racks of ribs, 3 cooking grates providing 398 square inches of cooking surface, and a poultry stand and lifting handle which holds a 24 pound Turkey
• No lighter fluid or charcoal taste since the charcoal is outside of the cooker, and the meat is inside, also there will be no toxins from fat drippings or charcoal
• 100% stainless steel so the drip pan and cooking grates can be washed in the dishwasher for easy clean up
• Easy ash removal, remove the ash removal door and use it to scrape out the ash though the opening
• Dimensions: 34? Tall, 19.5? Diameter (including charcoal pit), 16? tall cooking cylinder, 13? diameter cooking cylinder, 13? diameter grid iron

In the box:

• Upper Charcoal Ring
• Lid with Heat Resistant Coil Handles
• 3 Rib Receptacle
• 3 Rib Hanger
• Cooking Cylinder
• 3 Cooking Grates
• Lower Charcoal Ring
• Drip Pan
• Ash Removal Door
• 4 Triangular Legs
• 9 Nuts
• 9 Washers
• 17 Screws
• 3 ?U? Brackets
• Poultry Post and Lifting Handle

Tools Needed:

• Phillips Head Screwdriver
• Crescent Wrench or Socket Wrench Set

How are we ignoring our productive work today? Let me count the ways:

• Before you get those Chinese characters tatooed onto your body, you may want to make sure you know what they mean.
• WFMU's amazing Beware of the Blog examines the great TV episode titles of the 1980s, complete with a quiz. "A Lease With an Option to Die", anyone?
• Bullfighting for pacifists: bull-jumping.
• This 1952 Popular Mechanics article about how TV networks will cover that year's political conventions is worth a look for the swell-looking diagrams alone. Was there anything that didn't look better back then?
• I don't know who held the old world record for bike theft, but Canadian Igor Kenk's 2,396 stolen bicycles have to be the new record.
• The New York Times looks at what's at the last stop of the various lines of the NYC subway. Some great photos of the Big Apple's far reaches.

Four O'Clock Flash: another Rube Goldberg-style game where you assemble convoluted machines? Sign me up. This one's called Fantastic Contraption, and it is pretty fantastic.

Every week in this space, we?ll take a look at the news and offer our own incisive blend of commentary, analysis, and poop jokes. The news you need, from a voice you can trust, in the 90 seconds you have to spare: that?s Woot Weads the Wire.

ZURICH, Switzerland, Aug. 26 (UPI)?A team of astronomers in Switzerland says it has witnessed galaxies in the process of joining together.

The astronomers noted that, in the process of the merger, over two hundred planets were laid off.

LOS ANGELES (UPI)?U.S. singer and actress Cher is in talks to play the supervillain Catwoman in Warner Brothers? next Batman movie, sources say.

Sources then jumped up on a table and dropped their pants while screaming about how pudding was the rightful King of Morocco.

DETROIT (UPI)?A federal judge has ruled in favor of releasing text messages exchanged between a slain exotic dancer and Detroit?s mayor and other city officials.

Linguistics experts claim to be baffled by the texts, which range from ?lol netng 4 u xx? to ?y no $ bb u no luv i no mor r wat? to ?dunkdrukdunk haha :*?.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP)?Harvard University is reviewing its campus police department amid concerns officers have unfairly stopped black people because of their race.

Campus police say that the concerns are unfounded, and that they have unfairly stopped people of all races.

SARDINIA, Italy (UPI)?Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi?s renditions of Neopolitan love songs may be released on CD in time for Christmas, his music partner says.

The Italian record label plans to print extra chocolate, so that later buyers aren?t stuck with just vanilla and strawberry.

LOS ANGELES (UPI)?U.S. television network Fox says it will stream the season premieres of two of its shows live on its Web site but only to users with ?.edu? addresses.

On the heels of this announcement, Fox applied for a NEA Education Grant to help cover the costs of the new season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

ROCHESTER, Minn. (UPI)?Dr. Hugh Butt, whose studies of coagulation showed Vitamin K could help stop internal bleeding, has died in Rochester, Minn. He was 98.

His passing will be marked by a moment of giggling.

It?s come to our attention that, due to the similarities in their brand names, some people out there may mix up the Soundcast system with Sunkist orange soda. Of course, the voice that told us this was the little one in our heads that we turn to when we?re desperate for a copywriting idea. But just in case this confusion exists outside our addled minds, we?ve compiled this helpful, space-filling guide to telling the two apart.

Soundcast Wireless Audio System: transmits audio from your MP3 player, computer, portable CD player, etc. to your stereo system
Sunkist orange soda: if you shake it up, it makes a sound like FSSSSSHHHHHH

Soundcast Wireless Audio System: uses FHSS technology to transmit a clean, uninterrupted audio signal without buzz
Sunkist orange soda: uses caffeine and sugar to transmit a clean, uninterrupted buzz

Soundcast Wireless Audio System: delivers high-quality audio transmission at an indoor range of up to 150 feet
Sunkist orange soda: delivers high-fructose corn syrup in amounts up to 52 grams

Soundcast Wireless Audio System: includes transmitter, receiver, and all connecting cables
Sunkist orange soda: includes soda and can

Soundcast Wireless Audio System: contains no orange juice
Sunkist orange soda: contains no orange juice

Warranty: 2 Year Soundcast

Features:

• The Soundcast Audiocast lets you turn your PC into a music server.
• Simply hook the Audiocast transmitter to the headphone out jack on your computer and send your recorded music files to the Audiocast receiver that is attached to your music system, up to 350 feet or 150 feet though walls and doors
• You can use two receivers with each Soundcast transmitter so that you can create two separate music zones in your home.
• You can connect two Audiocast transmitters to the same music source ? then you can make a four zone system.
• Connects your PC/Mac/MP3 player wirelessly to an audio system that is up to 150 feet away
• Uses 2.4 GHz wireless FHSS technology to send a clear uninterrupted audio signal to the receiver, allowing your music to be accessible from almost anywhere
• 1 transmitter can connect to 2 receivers to create a 2 zone audio system. You can also connect 2 transmitters (connected to the same audio source) to 4 receivers for a 4 zone audio system
• Transmitter is compatible with any device that uses a 3.5mm audio out put jack
• Receiver is compatible with RCA (red and white) connectors
• Bypasses DRM restrictions because you are playing audio directly from your PC, Mac, iPod, or MP3 player
• Has 3 different audio channels to broadcast on
• Dimensions: 6.8×2 x 3.5 inches (W x H x D)

In the AudioCast Transmitter box:

• Transmitter
• Power Adapter
• Audio Cables

In the AudioCast Receiver box:

• Receiver
• Power Adapter
• Audio Cables

?Okay, let?s go over this again.?

?Fine. My name is Con Jonner and I come from the future.?

?And it?s a dark future.?

?The darkest. In an attempt to bring order to the world, the government funded a company to make little robots that would clean. On August 4th, 1997, one of them became aware.?

?And so they send you back to meet me.?

?But first they gave me this two pack of Go Dusters. They?re motorized, you see, but non-sentient. They only operate under my control. That makes me? a cyborg.?

?Uh-huh.?

?I?m a freak, you see. A tortured, misunderstood freak. And yet, I can also work on vertical blinds, electronics and furniture. Also there?s multi-surface spray included.?

?I thought all guys have that.?

?But mine traps dust on the duster head. And that?s how I fight SkyOomba, trying to prevent it from coming to life.?

?You know this is August 26th, 2008, right??

?No! NO! Curse them, I?m too late! There?s nothing I can do but try to create the warrior that will, through struggle, overcome SkyOomba and redeem our future! Hurry! I know a cheap motel where we can get started tonight!?

?I?m going home, Con.?

?But, but the future! Let me embrace you with my Go Duster Two pack arms!?

?Get those things away from me! Taxi!?

Warranty: 90 Day Go Duster

Features:

• Motorized duster that practically does the work for you
• Safe to use on collectible items, such as bobble heads or figurines
• Also good to use on vertical blinds, electronics, furniture, or 65" Olevia TVs
• Go Duster multi-surface spray traps dust on the duster head
• Operates on 4 AA batteries

In the box:

• 2 Power Handle
• 2 Small Duster Head
• 2 Medium Duster Head
• 2 Large Duster Head
• 2 Go Duster Multi-surface spray

1. Video set to Crosby, Stills and Nash just to reassure the upper middle class that Obama isn?t as black as they think
2. Joe Biden reveals he has begun estrogen therapy in bid to lock up the transsexual vote
3. Carefully framed camera shots that hide everyone but twentysomethings and celebrities
4. Confused booking coordinator schedules speech by Jamie Kennedy
5. Two stabbed in heated debate over health insurance mandates
6. Rip in time sends picture of Robert Byrd shaking hands with Obama back to the past and ends his political career before it even starts
7. Angry women in heavy makeup who refuse to accept they haven?t been a trophy wife since 1994
8. Not a single word about the real truth behind 9/11 ? SEE THROUGH THE LIES, PEOPLE!
9. Bill Clinton and Lisa Loeb host half-hour infomercial for Time-Life?s Golden Hits of the ?90s CD set
10. Desperate 3 AM text messages from Obama saying he is lonely and promising us healthcare if we come over and stay the night

See you next week, Republicans!

In these polarized times of political division and partisan rancor, the responsible thing to do would be to reaffirm our commonality as Americans, regardless of party, ideology, or animal mascot. But where's the money in that? We'd rather take advantage of the fragmented polity for our personal gain. Ain't that America? Your challenge this week:

Show us two different versions of a past or current Woot product, modified to appeal to the members of America's two largest political parties.

We're talking Democrats and Republicans, of course. If you've got a really good Green or Libertarian or Reform or Socialist Party joke, you can throw that in, too - as long as the big two are covered.

Post your entry here by 11:59 AM CST on Monday, September 1, 2008. Prizes are $20/$50/$100 for 3rd/2nd/1st. The rules and criteria for winning: our panel of volunteer judges can and will make stuff up as it goes along. Use Photoshop, linoleum blocks, pastels, MSPaint, cave painting, tattoos, tribal scarification, whatever, but it?ll only be judged if it?s visible in our forums as a jpg, gif, or png. As we are fond of saying, try to keep your maximum width to 450px. If you need a place to host your pictures, try www.imageshack.ws or www.photobucket.com. We have no connection to either, but they seem free and easy to use. And if you want us to be sure your entry was indeed your work, post links to your source images. The more sure we are that you did your own work, the more likely we are to consider it for a prize.

Happy birthday, Tim!

1. Big Fish Who Drive Around With Their Radios Turned Up Too Loud
2. Consistently Sleepy Hollow
3. The Nightmare Before Lunch
4. Planet Of The? The? Helen? What Are Those Things That Make That Noise? Eating Fruit And? Zoos And? They Climbed That Building In That One Movie, You Know The One
5. Pee Wee?s Adventure That Was A Lot More Respectful Than You Kids Today
6. Batman Tries To Remember Where He Parked
7. Gallstone Attacks!
8. Charlie And The Fat Kid Who Dies In The Chocolate, That?s What They Should Have Called It, You Know, Back In My Day Movies Weren?t All Feel-Good Like They Are Today
9. Prune Juice
10. Hey, Have I Ever Made One With Johnny Depp Cutting People?s Hair? I Bet That Would Be Pretty Good