Have you ever noticed that no matter which Best Buy you go into, you end up seeing the same people working there? That’s because there are seven types of people that work at every single Best Buy, with no exceptions.

A little known fact about me is that I worked at Best Buy for a couple of years in high school before getting fired for badly, badly abusing the employee discount system. But while there I learned a lot about the types of people that work in such an establishment, and I’ve noticed the same people in other Best Buys that I’ve been to since. So here are my list of the seven types of people you’ll find there, from a former employee’s perspective.

Next time you go to Best Buy, be on the lookout. I promise you’ll see at least a couple of these characters.

Illustrations by the illustrious Dan Meth, the artist behind such gems as the Pop Culture Charts and the animated Phone Sex Fetishes.

Want to ditch this gallery format and see everything on one page? Click here.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Car Audio Thug
You’ll find this guy in the car audio department. He’s got a big plug earring in each ear, some form of facial hair out of a late-90’s R&B video and tattoos on his forearms. He tears into the parking lot every day, tires squealing, bass blasting, in a late-model Civic that he’s dumped thousands of dollars into. You suspect that if he didn’t have a job selling car stereos, he’d be stealing them.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Marginally Cute Customer Service Girl
This girl works at the customer service desk or as a cashier. She’s maybe 17 years old and is kind of cute, but only when compared to the chubby piles of sadness she’s surrounded with. Because of this, she’s constantly hit on/sexually harassed by the guys who stock CDs and DVDs. She manages to take this in stride somehow and is almost infuriatingly perky and chipper. The chances of her having hooked up with the car audio thug are very high.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Grizzled Old Home Theater/Computer Sales Lifer
This guy has seen some shit. He’s a refugee from Lechmere or Tweeter or some other now-defunct retail outlet. He knows the most about the products he sells, which is why all the part-time high school employees send customers with actual questions his way. He’s got an air of resigned acceptance about his life, and while he’s all-business with customers, he’s got no filter with fellow employees. He tells inappropriate jokes and talks vulgarly about the managers behind their back. He has a strictly regimented cigarette break every 2.5 hours that he never, ever misses.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Pervy Geek Squad Guy
This guy searches every computer that’s in for service for porn, collecting everything he finds on an external HDD that he keeps in the back. He talks in graphic terms about what he’d do to women who he sees enter the store, but when he talks to them he’s totally professional. You suspect that he pleasures himself behind the plastic curtains, but you don’t want to confirm this. He’s got a level 80 World of Warcraft character. Somehow, he and the grizzled old sales guy are buddies and eat lunch together.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Sad Department Manager
This guy went to college then, after graduation, moved back home with his parents to save money. He ended up getting a job at Best Buy while he ‘figured stuff out.’ It’s 10 years later and he still lives in the town he went to high school in, is balding, gained 15 pounds and is the manager of the digital cameras department. He’s perfectly adequate at his job, but talking to him for more than 5 minutes just makes you so damned sad.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Slick Careerist Manager
This guy wants to go right to the top. He runs team meetings, irons his blue polos, and gets a hard-on when talking about accessory sales and service-plan attach rates. He’s climbing the ladder with everything he’s got, and he spews corporate nonsense with the passion of a true believer. You’ve never seen him have an actual human interaction with someone, and you wonder if he even has any furniture in his apartment. He may be a robot.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Terrifying Loss-Prevention Guy
This guy is either an ex-con, an ex-cop or a vet. He is jacked yet forced to wear a yellow polo shirt, which creates a false sense of levity when dealing with him. He may seem friendly on the outside, but if you cross him he will snap your neck. He legitimately thinks that it’s unfair that Best Buy security guys aren’t allowed to carry sidearms. He has so much rage bottled up inside him that you know to just say hello and smile and otherwise steer clear.

(Via Gizmodo.)

Legitimate guitarists have a beef with Guitar Hero/Rock Band mainly because they make people think they can actually play guitar. But what of the Zivix Headliner, a real guitar that works with these games?

For about $250, designer Zivix will attempt to bridge the gap between these two warring factions by blending a real electric guitar with the button-mashing pseudo-music insanity that breaks out at my apartment after a few too many pints at the local pub. Ultimately, Zivix hopes that more than a few Guitar Hero/Rock Band masters will take the leap and actually make some real music with the Headliner.

No release date was given, but Zivix hopes to have this full size guitar on store shelves later this year. [Zivix via OhGizmo]

(Via Gizmodo.)

With so much debate about the economic stimulus package and the ongoing plans to rescue America’s banks, this site was bound to happen. Bank of Obama is a quick and fun parody of the current economic climate, allowing you to send virtual or real bailout checks from the President to your friends.

Input the name of who you’re sending a bailout to, how much to send them, the ‘memo’ (with options like mortgage, car loan, and gambling debt), and a personal note and you’re on your way. You can then opt to deliver a virtual check to the recipient (like the one below), or for $2.99 via PayPal, have the folks behind Bank of Obama send the physical parody check to your friend via postal mail.

Actually sending the parody check might be a bit ironic. On one hand you’re complaining about the government frivolously spending your money, but on the other, you’re paying to send out worthless pieces of paper. Nonetheless, the joke will likely be appreciated by those that think the bailout and stimulus package are wasteful – not so much perhaps by those on the other side of the issue.

(Via Mashable!.)

“Our USA is known around the world as the most creative and productive of the 20th Century.  I am convinced that it has been our heritage of individual liberty that has made it possible for us to show the world how to provide abundant prosperity for all.

If each of us can just see the future as positive and act accordingly, we’ll be fine.  It is not helpful to dwell on the dire aspects of today’s “Hard Times”.

Think about how much better things are now compared to the way they were described by Charles Dickens in the 19th Century.”

God Bless,

Keith Burk
AKA: ‘AncientFool’
Website: keithburk.com

In case anybody is keeping the count in this dumb bragging race, here’s an image of Mac OS X running two hundred apps at once, breaking the previous 150 apps record.

The new silly mark was set on a 20-inch 2007 iMac, with a 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo and 4 Gigabytes of RAM. It took about 15 minutes to open all apps, and I guess 15 more minutes to put all the windows in Exposé mode. The reader who sent this says that he ‘was able to talk on video chat while opening everything, even while the video froze at some times for just a few seconds.’ One thing he noticed: The dock can’t get beyond 100 applications.

And what I still can’t get is how people have the patience to collect 200 apps just to run them at once.

(Via Gizmodo.)

Desktop Wallpaper

Summer certainly flew by and while I occasionally wish we had just one more month to squeeze in, I realized that since my fingers are almost frozen, autumn definitely arrived! P.S. Meanwhile it’s Winter!

Resolutions: 2560×1600, 1920×1200, 1920×1080, 1680×1050, 1600×1200, 1440×900, 1400×1050, 1280×1024, 1280×960, 1280×800, 1280×720, 1024×768, 1024×600, 800×480, 480×272, 320×240.

(Via InterfaceLIFT: Newest Wallpaper.)

Britain is not only getting a whole lotta lot of F-35B STOVL fighters, but two new 60,000-ton state-of-the-art aircraft carriers. Apparently, according to Dr Lee Willett, it’s all part of a new World arms race:

All the major navies in the world are now building them. The Russians have one of their big carriers, the Admiral Kuznetsov, back at sea and have stated that they plan to build 12 carrier battle groups. The Chinese and the Indians are also under way with plans, the Japanese are building a destroyer that will act as a helicopter carrier and the US are working on new-generation carriers. We’re an island nation and we have global interests so we need these four acres of moveable sovereign airfield that we can deploy wherever we want, whenever we need them.

The world is an unstable place and, post-Iraq and the global war on terror, access to other nation’s territory or airspace is more difficult.

Great. When have I heard this before? Maybe knowing that Dr Willett is head of the Maritime Studies Programme at the Royal United Services Institute, helps in understanding that maybe he has an special interest in this two mobile naval airbases.

The carriers—which will cost $5.9 billion, a lot less than the $14 billion that the US spends on their super-carriers—will host 36 F-35s and two EH-101 Merlin multi-purpose helicopters each.

Constructed in modules all across Britain, which will be later assembled in a very complicated process in a central shipyard—will be almost fully automated, requiring only a 1,500 crew. Here is the fact sheet:

• The surface of the16,000sqm flight deck is covered in a grainy,heat-resistant paint,similar to very coarse sandpaper. The entire painted surface amounts to 370 acres – slightly bigger than Hyde Park.

• Two huge lifts, each with a 70-ton capacity, are capable of transporting two aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck in 60 seconds.

• The ground-breaking twin-island layout allows more deck space for aircraft and better visibility of the flight deck. The forward island is for navigating the ship; flight control is based in the aft island.

• The ship’s 29,000 sq m hangar is 150 metres in length and has 20 slots for aircraft maintenance.

• There are 11 full-time medical staff on board managing an eight-bed medical suite, operating theatre and dental surgery.

• Onboard water treatment plant produces over 500 tons of fresh water daily.

• Two Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines and four diesel generator sets produce 109MW.

• Cabins are spacious and cruise-liner style, with en-suite toilets and shower facilities. Officers and senior ratings have single or two-berth cabins. The maximum number of crew in a cabin is six.

• The carrier will carry more than 8,600 tons of fuel, enough for the average family car to travel to the Moon and back 12 times. This gives a range of up to 10,000 nautical miles.

• Top speed will be in excess of 25 knots, sufficient to cross from Dover to Calais in an hour.

• The two five-blade propellers are each 30ft in diameter – that’s one-and-a-half times the height of a double-decker bus.

Head to the Daily Mail for more details. [Daily Mail]

(Via Gizmodo.)

It looks like the reason Gibson’s self-tuning Robot guitar had a limited run is that the legendary guitar innovator had a much more insane second stage already blueprinted up: Gibson’s Dark Fire Les Paul-style digital guitar is the crowning shred-related scientific achievement of our time.

Think of it as the Robot plus the Moog synth guitar rolled into one. First and foremost, it’s a guitarist’s guitar, with three different kind of pickups—a humbucker, a single-coil and a bridge-mounted piezo acoustic—all capable of contributing their sound to an original, organic blend of totally real guitar noise.

Having anchored itself firmly in Gibson’s traditions, it’s also got some crazy new stuff. Like the Robot, it self-tunes (now up to 500 times on a single battery charge), and using the ‘Chameleon Tone Technology’ it is capable of producing ‘every imaginable guitar sound,’ says Gibson.

The company is quite proud of the Master Control Knob—presumably with a bit of a Tron shoutout there—though I can only imagine that the ’sophisticated full color matrix display featuring LEDs and high-tech light pipe technology’ takes a little bit of a hike up the learning curve.

Those who know of Les Paul’s guitar innovations will appreciate that Gibson is carrying on his tradition of complication as a necessary means for cooler guitar tech. Some of Les’ personal guitars had tons of mostly unmarked switches on them, not to mention a few boxes off to the side.

Speaking of boxes, a lot of the digital mojo is facilitated by the guitar’s interface, the Robot Interface Pack, which has jacks on the front for the guitar and headphones. On the rear there’s a FireWire connector (hear that, new MacBook shoppers?) and a hex connector, which can be adapted for MIDI output. The good news for suckers who bought the first-gen Robot is that the upgrade will be available to them at a price close to cost. (My guess is they’ll make the money on labor when you take your Robot in for the upgrade.)

Though Gibson won’t promise ‘infinite sustain’ like Moog, it does say that its body design makes ‘the Dark Fire one of the best-sustaining Les Pauls ever produced.’ Cool. [Gibson]

(Via Gizmodo.)

The Halloween is around the corner and the atmosphere is filled with pumpkins, skeletons, bonfires, horror movies and other scary things spread across the houses, stores and, of course, web sites. Just the right time to spice up your desktop and your designs with an appropriate Halloween spirit. And for this purpose you may use Halloween Photoshop Vectors or Halloween Icons (even more Halloween icons). Alternatively, you can change your desktop wallpaper and prepare some traditional pumpkin carvings.

In this post we present some beautiful Halloween wallpapers, art works, recipes and tutorials for your scary Halloween party. All these screenshots are linked to their source.

You may also want to take a look at our Halloween Special from last year to get some more ideas for Halloween costumes, recipes and DIY-tutorials and related posts:

• Halloween Round-Up: Wallpapers, Icons and How-Tos
• (Really) Stunning Desktop Wallpapers
• More (Really) Stunning Desktop Wallpapers
• Selected Wallpapers For Your Desktop
• 50 Remarkable Nature Wallpapers
• Space Wallpapers and Nebula Wallpapers

Original Halloween Wallpapers

Think Halloween
Only 1280x 960px. Designed by Zefhar.

Ghosts
800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1600×1200.

Halloween Night Wallpaper
1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×960 and 1600×1200.

Crucial Design
Wallpapers for iPhone, 1024×768, 1280×960, 1600×1200, 1920×1200.

A Spider
1280×1024.

Pacman Halloween
800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1600×1200.

Tombstone and Witch
320×480 (iPhone), 1600×1200, 2560×1600.

Haunted Hotel
A Halloween desktop wallpaper and 12 Halloween desktop icons. For Windows and Mac.

Horror, Scary Wallpapers

Eye Horror
1600×1200.

The Butterfly
1900×1200.

The Knife
1600×1200.

Mother V: Blood
1152×864.

Skin Walkers
1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×1024 and 1600×1200.

The Bloody USB-Stick
1600×1200.

Poze Horror Desktop Wallpaper
1600×1200.

Classic Wallpapers: Pumpkins!

The Halloween Spirit
This widescreen wallpaper features a spirit not quite ready to give up on trick-or-treating yet. This free Halloween desktop download features 5 computer wallpapers for desktops using 1600×1200, 1280×1024, 1280×960, 1024×768 or 1400×1050 resolutions.

The Scarecrow
Only 800×600 and 1024×768.

Halloween – Boo
800×600, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024 and 1600×1200.

Halloween Pumpkin Wallpaper
1440×900.

Soooo many pumpkins!
800×600, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024 and 1600×1200.

Halloween Lights
Pumpkin and gourd lanterns represent a more artistic side of All Hallow’s Eve. 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1600×1200.

White Chocolate Pumpkin
This white pumpkin decorated with brown and orange graphics looks good enough to eat. 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1600×1200.

Wallcoo Halloween Haunts
Over 50 beautiful Halloween wallpapers in various resolutions, at most 1920×1200.

Spooky Halloween
1024×768.

Paci Tubes Halloween Wallpapers
7 Halloween wallpapers in the resolution 1280×1024.

Pumpkins
1280×1024.

Pendemonium
Only 1024×768.

Dangerous Mask
1600×1200.

Halloween In The Midnight Forest
800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1600×1200.

Halloween Pumpkins
800×600, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×1024, 1600×1200.

Halloween Art Design
Only 1024×768.

The Two And The Nightmare
800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1600×1200.

iPhone Halloween Wallpaper

Creative Pumpkin Art

During the Halloween pumpkins are almost everywhere. The tradition to use pumpkins as Halloween lanterns was born in 1840s in American tradition. Now this tradition is turning into creative masterpieces.

Death Star

Worm Infested Pumpkin

Cheshire Cat

Predator Halloween Pumpkin

Winking pumpkin

King Pumpkin

Space Invader

Serving Vessels

Halloween Dinner Table

Fantasy Pumpkin

Creative Halloween Face Painting

Halloween How-To

Stenciled Pumpkins

Creepy-Crawly Candy

Lantern-o’-Treats

Celestial Pumpkins

Skeleton Cupcakes

Charm Balls

Halloween Wreath

Halloween Decoration: Spiderwebs

Halloween Head Wreath

Halloween Craft: Victorian Pumpkins

Mini-Treat Bags and Tree

Painted Candles

Glostly Glow

Fairy Wings

Jack-O-Lantern

Bat Cupcake

Halloween Art

Further Resources

Area for further articles and related resources.

• Halloween Wallpapers
  A collection of beautiful wide-screen Halloween wallpapers.
• Vladstudio Halloween Wallpapers
• 20 Wallpapers for Halloween
• Alldesktop.ru: Halloween Wallpapers
• Scary Wallpapers
• Halloween for kids
  Creative Halloween Costumes, Cooking, And Crafts For Kids On Halloween.
• Fantasy Pumpkins
  A collection of beautiful pumpkin carvings.
• 54 Absolutely Stunning 3D Pumpkin Carvings
  Some awesome 3D carving on the Food Network Challenge show.
• Flickr:Disney Halloween
  Photos from a Disney themepark during their Halloween events, Disney Halloween merchandising, etc.
• The 23 Best Horror Games
  Celebrate Halloween Eve by sitting down with some of the scariest video games ever created.

Related posts

You may also want to take a look at our Halloween Special from last year to get some more ideas for Halloween costumes, recipes and DIY-tutorials and related posts:

• Halloween Round-Up: Wallpapers, Icons and How-Tos
• (Really) Stunning Desktop Wallpapers
• More (Really) Stunning Desktop Wallpapers
• Selected Wallpapers For Your Desktop
• 50 Remarkable Nature Wallpapers
• Space Wallpapers and Nebula Wallpapers

(Via Smashing Magazine.)