Much like the Amish setting out on their carriages to roam the land for hedonistic delights, my modem and I have traversed the internets and now return with sweet, sweet video.

We begin with Firefox Flicks. In a nutshell, a few months ago the benevolent dictators who run that open source gig asked for 30-second ads promoting Firefox. All entries would get put up on the web, and there would be celebrity judges and big prizes for the winners. And I thought, yeah right. It’s one thing to put a link to getfirefox.com on your blog. But how many Firefox fans were going to front up with the talent and sheer volume of work required to produce a 30-second video?

Turns out, about 250. And many of them are surprisingly good – I was humbled by their awesomeness and my wrongness. 100 or so have been added to the site so far, and the winners have just been announced. I guess they are not the winners I would have picked, but then again, I would have given every single prize to Wheee!. I wouldn’t name my console that, mind, but that is one seriously funny ad. I also recommend Bask in the Smell (also not an especially inviting name) amongst many others. But why stop there – see them all! (And see also children impersonate the Wheee! ad.)

Now we move on to my other favourite topic, dissing Microsoft. Someone thought to ask what would have happened if Microsoft had designed the iPod? And I mean, yeah. It’s (very) funny because it’s true. What was even more interesting is that I later discovered the video had been made by Microsoft as a sort of internal kick-up-the-arse that someone had thoughtfully leaked to the web. It’s certainly promising to see they at least realise what they’re doing wrong. Apparently that’s the hard bit.

Perhaps you missed this April Fool’s parody of Ruby on Rails. Introducing – and I’m thilled about this – a screencast of SQL on Rails. Why learn more than one language to develop web apps!

And finally, a series of Nintendo DS Lite reviews by Cabel Sasser. Nintendo DS Lite First Look, Second Look and Third Look. If you tend to snort or otherwise embarrass yourself when you LOL, ensure you are alone when you watch these, because I’m warning you now, you will LOL.