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According to Google Maps, it is 9,751 miles (about 33 days 13 hours) to drive from Fairbanks, Alaska, USA to Moscow, Russia. 3,462 miles of that is just crossing the Atlantic Ocean. What is the speed limit there anyways? I could probably shave off a few days.

Update: A few visitors have found longer routes, but apparently Google has now removed the cross Atlantic path.  But a route to Brazil was found! So we can go Unalaska to Boa Vista, Roraima which is 15,082 mi (24,276 km) – about 56 days 2 hours!

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Now for the first time ever, after 15 years of off screen name calling and momma bashing, Sonic The Hedgehog and Mario (the plumber) are appearing in the same game. What better show of competition than to have the two most well known video game stars of all time battle it out on the 400yd dash (sonic for the win) or the triple jump (gold for mario). This NeoGAF message board summary basically puts it all into perspective: Mario vs. Sonic Olympic discussion summary. I think the biggest news from this is that there is more backing to the rumor that Sonic will be in the new Smash Bros.

Takes all me back to the good ole’ days of Nintendo vs. Sega (warning! very vulgar language!). Sonic was the sole reason I caved in and got a Sega Genesis and later a Game Gear. Strange that now Sega is kinda on Nintendo’s side now, in the new war of Nintendo vs Playstation vs Xbox, but that story is still being written on the playgrounds today.

Its been 14 years since the last Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, so I have been looking forward to seeing this new CG rendition. So opening night I drug a few friends to the nearest theater. My review may contain a few spoilers. You have been warned.

The plot line is good but not well balanced. The turtles have officially been out of action for a while since they defeated Shredder. Donatello and Michelangelo have menial day jobs. Raphael rebelliously stays up late fighting crime on his own. Leonardo is off training in the jungle at Splinter’s request.

Eventually Leo returns to lead his brothers. Everyone is thrilled except Raphael. The tension between Leo and Raph grows, and eventually leads to an awesome showdown between the two. This is about the point when the movie changes from old-school turtle goodness to a typical Saturday morning cartoon.

The other side of the plot involves a 3000 year old general with a curse of eternal life. He brings to life his old war buddies, who have been turned to stone, and uses them and the Foot Clan to collect 13 monsters from space. Once they are collected, the curse will be broken, but the stone buddies don’t like that plan. As far as I know, nothing about it is tied into any part of the Turtle’s universe, and it all felt like a rushed afterthought.

Despite the crazy plot, the movie was pretty enjoyable throughout. Even though the live-action Turtle costumes were great, I think CG fits them well. I would tweak the models a bit to make them look less like frogs though. The jokes were not as bad I as I feared and I even laughed out loud a few times. The fighting was OK but nothing too violent to scare the kiddies. The Turtles and Foot Clan (and sadly April and Casey too) all displayed quick ninja fighting skills with a heavy dose of roof-top jumping. There was only one real cheesy scene (Mikey skateboarding through the sewers) which apparently is a requirement for any TMNT movie.

I am looking forward to the hinted-at sequel. Hopefully they can get the story straight from the comics.

I give TMNT 6 pizza slices out of 8. Needs more Shredder.

Dice, a tech-job site, has a nice 2006 Tech Salary Survey of “Technology Professionals”. Its nice to know that what I do involves to some extent the top paying skills and experience, like Sarbanes-Oxley. I wish my salary lined up with their survey results though!

I expected salaries to be higher for small companies, but its actually the opposite: