As many of you know last Halloween a few of us put together a shot-by-shot recreation of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video shot here in St. John’s. Many of you have been requesting it to be put online.

Well now it is.

The story and video are located on the Product of Newfoundland blog (Thriller: St. John’s Style).

The video is temporarily only available on Facebook, but as soon as we have it on YouTube I will feed the video on GregPike.ca.

Additional information (Product of Newfoundland): Thriller: St. John’s Style
Additional information (dot dot dot): Thriller, in St. John’s
Additional information (Signal): Thriller was here. In St. John’s, I mean

UPDATE: The video is now available on GregPike.ca!

GregPike.ca Michael Jackson, St. John's, Thriller

I have been referencing this to a lot of people recently because people have been talking a lot about their blind devotion to Pixar films with the new Up movie in theatres. This is priceless.

The Web, Wacky Dreamworks, Pixar

I know everyone is expecting me to write something regarding this topic as if I was Michael’s best friend. For those of you who do not know last year my friends and I recreated the Thriller video shot-for-shot in St. John’s with me as Michael Jackson.

I’m not sure what is the best way to show respect for this amazing entertainer, but I’ll write a little about the last day.

News of the story exploded on Twitter last night. Unfortunately I was not on the Internet at the time and was unable to cover the story but word is that Michael Jackson, for a while, dominated all 10 Trending Topics, which is no small feat. According to this graph provided by Mashable nearly 1 in ever 4 tweets was contained the words “Michael Jackson”.

Online news websites got swamped with visitors last night. Website availability for the top news websites fell from 100% to 86% as visitors flooded in to learn more about the incident. The average load time for every page doubled from 4.2 seconds to load to 8.9 seconds to load. Only one in every ten visitors was able to access ABCNews.com as they were floored with visitor requests.

I have no doubt there is a great deal of sadness amoung among his thousands of obsessed fans and the millions more who love his music (and how can I neglect to say dance moves). MJ’s family has requested that they be left alone to pay their respects and love to Michael. I doubt they will get any kind of peace given the power of these circumstances, but I respect their wishes and send my condolences.

In light of this tragedy I think I will upload our version of Thriller online despite my intention to save it for Halloween. I can imagine no better way for me to show my respect for this pop legend than to publicize an imitation of his great work, one of my favorite videos, Thriller. I will publish the video here when it is ready.

Good buy Michael. RIP.

From Mashable: Michael Jackson Dies: Twitter Tributes Now 30% of Tweets
From CNet News: News sites swamped following Michael Jackson’s death
From BNO News: Request from Michael’s family

GregPike.ca, The Web, Wacky Michael Jackson, Thriller, Twitter

Swine Flu case in this province have exploded since the first one was noticed about two weeks ago.

Newfoundland and Labrador was the last Canadian province to have a confirmed case of the H1N1 influenza that has been rapidly spreading across the globe.

In a matter of days since the first case was reported there have been 27 confirmed cases and that number continues to rise.

Since June 11th, when I posted the Swine Flu tracking map, the total number of Canadian cases has doubled.

Local News Swine Flu

How appropriate that my last post was about browsers.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has always been one of the most popular browsers, not because people love it, but because it comes installed with Windows and the majority of web users have no idea how to get a new browser (or even that there are options) or they are too lazy to bother.

Internet Explorer, which has a reputation for being insecure, unintuitative, and buggy, has made a claim against the other popular browsers that it is better in every department.

Windows Internet Explorer 8: Get the facts

This comparison chart is an absolute joke. Right off the bat, even if Internet Explorer 8 is all the things they claim to be (secure, private, adaptable, etc), the other two browsers compared, Firefox and Chrome, are at the very least ahead of IE8 in pretty much all of those departments.

IE complies with Web Standards? What a joke. I’ll believe this when I see it.

Rants, The Web Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer

Jason showed this to me today at work and I’m flabbergasted. That’s right. I said flabbergasted.

According to this guy’s informal study less than 8% of people in Time Square know what a browser is. In fact, most of them just assume it is a search engine.

92% of people have no idea what a browser is when they use one everyday!

I don’t assume everyone knows what a browser is, but given pretty much everyone uses one everyday I figured the statistics would be more reasonable.

Given this statistic I am going to assume that most people reading this post have no idea what a browser is so I will give you the benefit of the doubt and tell you.

A browser is a computer program that is used for viewing web pages on the internet. Some examples of popular browsers include Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

A search engine is a web site that you view in a browser that indexes other websites like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Flabbergasted.

The Web Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari

Batman: I just accidentally a Coca Cola bottle is this bad?

Joker: Accidentally what?

Batman: A Coca Cola Bottle.

Joker: …

Word on the street is that this stems from a forum post some guy made one time where he was missing an important verb and when someone called him on it (“Accidently what”) he didn’t pick up on it.

Update:  One of my visitors pointed out that the origin of this phenomenon is I Accidientally X.

The Web, Wacky

Normally I am a pretty blind follower of Danny Williams. I generally feel that when he says something or defends a governmental move I believe him. But I am capable of thinking for myself.

In an interview with Randy Simms on his Open Line show, Danny Williams is challenged about the effects of oil revenue for generations to come. He is asked about what is being done to keep Newfoundland and Labrador in the black for the future beyond this era of rich oil on the Grand Banks.

Rather than give a reasonable answer to a reasonable question, he deflects, calls Randy Simms a pessimist for questioning his work, and hangs up the phone.

Additional information: Williams slams radio host for ‘crap’

Local News, Politics Danny Williams, Newfoundland & Labrador

Over the weekend Facebook released an update for their website that allows users to select a vanity URL for their profile. Luckily by the time I managed to get about to choosing my Facebook alias GregPike.ca was still available.

Greg Pike’s Facebook Profile

The Web Facebook

I had forgotten about Swine Flu, or H1N1, but this influenza continues to flurish. Every day there are more and more confirmed cases of Swine Flu around the world. Check the map below for an up-to-date illustration of how many confirmed and suspected cases of Swine Flu exist around the world.