Friday, December 30, 2005

Ghost Rider

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/ghostrider/

Making the Donuts No Longer

Michael Vale, the actor best known for his portrayal of a sleepy-eyed Dunkin' Donuts baker who said "Time to make the doughnuts," has died. He was 83.

Ironically, he died from complications of Diabetes, arch nemisis of the donut.

Word Of The Day

perquisite \PUR-kwuh-zit\, noun:

1. A profit or benefit in addition to a salary or wages.
2. Broadly: The benefits of a position or office.
3. A gratuity or tip for services performed.
4. Anything to which someone has or claims the sole right.

In a tight market for skilled labor... corporations are increasingly buying homes for hot new hires -- a perquisite once reserved for top executives.
--Jennie James, "For Many Europeans, There's No Place Like Home," Time, May 8, 2000

It is a shock to find the master, whom we cannot help thinking of as the greatest gentleman in the history of art, regarding petty larceny as a perquisite of office and diverting the wages of sweepers and cleaners.
--Sir Lawrence Gowing, "Obsessed by Ambition, Saved by Art," New York Times, August 10, 1986

She is dressed in an inexpensive but stylish outfit, impeccably coordinated gloves, hat, shoes, and matching purse--the sole perquisite of her husband's hand-to-mouth pattern-cutting job in the ladies garment industry.
--Ann Druyan, "A New Sense of the Sacred," Humanist, November 2000

After having long been a narrowly aristocratic perquisite, the opportunity for adventurous cuisine was "democratized" in early modern, increasingly capitalistic Europe, by the spreading quest for upward social mobility, imperial service abroad, and thickening networks of social commerce.
--Robert Mccormick Adams, "Introduction: Case Histories," Social Research, Spring 1999

Perquisite derives from Medieval Latin perquisitum, from the past participle of Latin perquirere, "to search for eagerly," from per-, "through, thoroughly" + quaerere, "to seek." In Middle English it meant "property acquired by means other than inheritance." By 1565 it had acquired the sense "fringe benefit"; by 1721 it had also come to signify "a tip or gratuity."

Synonyms: benefit, fringe benefit, gravy, perk, reward.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Bend it Like Beckham

A fun little free-kick taking game...

http://www.capitalent.com/beckham/games/

Word Of The Day

This one's for Mike:

Word of the Day for Monday December 12, 2005

tmesis \TMEE-sis\, noun:
In grammar and rhetoric, the separation of the parts of a compound word, now generally done for humorous effect; for example, "what place soever" instead of "whatsoever place," or "abso-bloody-lutely."

If on the first, how heinous e'er it be,
To win thy after-love I pardon thee.
--Shakespeare, Richard II

His income-tax return, he remarked, was the "most rigged-up marole" he'd ever seen.
--Frederic Packard

In two words, im possible.
--Samuel Goldwyn

Tmesis is from Greek tmesis, "a cutting," from temnein, "to cut."

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Stand-off

This is a great advert for the Xbox 360. I blieve the advert was banned. It reminds me of the episode of Spaced.

http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=1156

Today's Weird Fetish

Is photoshopped women with no arms

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38534216@N00/sets/1498455/

Don't worry, the pictures aren't real.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Being British

Have a cup of tea and a choccy biccy.

Now have a lovely hot bath before throwing your poop into the street, catching bubonic plague and invading several smaller African countries, declaring that the "natives are restless".

Oh and don't forget to be all coy, yet arrogant and passive-aggressive. And complain lots, but don't do anything about it.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

She is We Todd Did

But she doesn't know it yet...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-704985594321203050

Farting Preacher

This is an absolutely genius piece of editing...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2453217212869715744

Word Of The Day

repast \rih-PAST\, noun:
Something taken as food; a meal.

This repast could scarcely have been digested before a "tea" of fresh bread, butter, cheese, cold meat, and cake was served at half past six.
--Joan Druett, Hen Frigates

On June 1, 1563, in Basel, Thomas sat down to a meal, probably the evening repast.
--Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Beggar and the Professor (translated by Arthur Goldhammer)

When staying with friends in America in 1949, the philosopher demanded bread and cheese at all meals. Every time the dull repast was laid before him, he would exclaim, as if for the first time, "Hot diggetty!", a phrase he had picked up from the movies.
--Bee Wilson, "Stomach tracts," New Statesman, January 8, 1999

Repast comes from Old French repaistre, "to feed," from Latin re- + pascere, "to feed." It is related to pasture, "the grass grown for the feeding of grazing animals, or the land used for grazing."

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Mrs "Munster" Bush

What the hell is up with Mrs Bush?

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1712262

Funky Laundry

http://www.funkylaundry.nl/webwinkel/N_frame.html?http://www.funkylaundry.nl/webwinkel/

Powerful Versus

In case you've been living under a rock (or still think reading is where it's at), you may have missed the biggest trend in film since Jar Jar Binks heralded a new age in make-believe annoyance. I'm talking, of course, about versus movies.

Freddy Vs. Jason and Alien Vs. Predator were just the dual tips of this exceedingly idiotic iceberg. The versus genre - showcasing the art form of taking two iconic characters (or concepts) and forcefully smooshing them into a film that the American public will eat up like candy is hot. Not since the heyday of Godzilla, has the versus genre sent movie execs into a state of latte-induced foaming of the mouth. So, in my bid to cash in on this imbecilic trend, I give you five more versus movies that at least 125,000 people will probably pay to see.

http://www.thecheappop.com/vs.html

Zoo Joke

A man goes to a zoo, but all that's there is a dog.

It was a shitzu.

Baby Scan Pictures

Maybe I will feel differntly one day but I have to tell you, I hate baby scan pictures. The proud parents are all like, oooh, oooh, look look at its little hands, and I am always thinking, dear god, that's a half-formed freakazoid alien. Kinda like when Jeff Goldblum puts the monkey in the teleporter in the remake of the fly and it emerges in the other pod inside-out, just before it explodes.

Babies - real babies are another matter, but what's so cute about a 3 1/2 month blob? Might as well cuddle my chicken eggs - before I turn them into a lovely omlette. Mmm omlettes.

I'm hungry.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Bedknobs

I have no idea where this bed is, but I don't think you would get any sleep, do you?

Doh Doh Doh

Agence France Presse published a photo of Katrina hurricane victim Latesha Vinette holding her new Red Cross debit card, a picture that was instantly redistributed on Yahoo! News and other wire service web sites. Shockingly, the balance on the card dropped to ZERO within minutes, as hundreds of fraudsters went on shopping sprees with the card number. A few hours later, Vinette was paged over the Reliant stadium speaker system to receive a call from Mastercard, which wanted to know about cash-advance requests totaling $65,237, and attempts to use the card to buy a Ferrari and hundreds of other goods on eBay.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Games Update

Thing Thing 2 - Much better than Thing Thing - side scrolling death and mayhem aplenty.



Submachine - very annoying, but I bet you can't stop playing.



Stickman Sam 2 - More side scrolling death and mayhem.

Filum Updates

Capote Serenity Waiting History Of Violence Stay Green Street The Warrior Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit Shopgirl V for Vendetta Prime

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

How To Deal With Telemarketers

1. If they want to loan you money, tell them you just filed for bankruptcy and you could sure use some money. Ask, "How long can I keep it? Do I have to ever pay it back, or is it like the other money I borrowed before my bankruptcy?"

2. If they start out with, "How are you today?" say, "Why do you want to know?" Or you can say, "I'm so glad you asked, because no one seems
to care these days and I have all these problems, my sciatica is acting up, my eyelashes are sore, my dog just died . . ." When they try to get back to the sales process, just continue on with telling about your problems.

3. If the person says he's Joe Doe from the XYZ Company, ask him to spell his name, then ask him to spell the company name, then ask where it is located. Continue asking personal questions or questions about the company for as long as necessary.

4. This one works better if you are male: Telemarketer: "Hi, my name is Judy and I'm with Canter and Siegel services....
You: "Hang on a second." (few seconds pause) "Okay, (in a really husky voice) what are
you wearing?"

5. Crying out, in well-simulated tones of pleasure and surprise, "Judy!! Is this really you? I can't believe it! Judy, how have you
BEEN?" Hopefully, this will give Judy a few brief moments of terror as she tries to figure out where the heck she could know you from.

6. Say, "No," over and over. Be sure to vary the sound of each no, and keep an even tempo even as they're trying to speak. This is the most fun if you can keep going until they hang up.

7. If MCI calls trying to get you to sign up with their Family and Friends plan, reply, in as sinister a voice as you can muster, "I don't have any friends . . . would you be my friend?"

8. If they clean rugs: "Can you get blood out, you can? Well, how about goat blood or HUMAN blood - chicken blood too?"

9. Let the person go through their spiel, providing minimal but necessary feedback in the form of an occasional "Uh-huh, really, or, "That's fascinating." Finally, when they ask you to buy, ask them to marry you. They get all flustered, but just tell them you couldn't give your credit card number to someone who's a complete stranger.

10. Tell them you work for the same company they work for.
Example: Telemarketer: "This is Bill from Watertronics."
You: "Watertronics!! Hey I work for them too. Where are you calling from?"
Telemarketer: "Uh, Dallas, Texas." You: "Great, they have a group there too? How's business/the weather? Too bad the company has a policy against selling to employees! Oh well, see ya."

11. Tell the Telemarketer you are busy and if they will give you their phone number you will call them back. If they say they are not allowed to give out their number, then ask them for their home number and tell them you will call them at home (this is usually the most effective method of getting rid of Telemarketers). If the person says, "Well, I don't really want to get a call at home," say, "Yeah! Now you know how I feel." (smiling, of course...)

Actually this one I use myself...

12. Ask them to hold on, then just leave the phone off the hook and go do something more interesting.

Just like the indian restaurant trick recently performed on Radio One, I wonder if it's possible to get two telemarketers talking to each other on the phone, trying to sell each other their own shit?

Made-up Words In The Simpsons

Several memes, words and phrases (often neologisms) that started on The Simpsons television series have now become mainstream words or sayings. The most famous of which is Homer's saying: "D'oh!", which is referred to in scripts, as well as several episode names, as "annoyed grunt". D'oh is now listed in the Oxford English Dictionary and even in smaller ones such as OUP's one volume Oxford Dictionary of English (second edition). Other memes are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made-up_words_in_The_Simpsons

Waiter, there’s a diamond in my drink

Had a win at bingo recently? For the ultimate in extravagance, get down to the Sheraton Park Tower’s Piano Bar and order what is possibly the most bling drink on the planet – the Louis XIII Diamond Cocktail.

Dubbed "London’s Most Exclusive" the Cognac and Champagne cocktail is served in a crystal martini glass and garnished with … wait for it - a individually selected diamond. So how much will this display of fabulous-ness set you back? Well, it depends on the size of the rock, but you won’t get much change out of £4,000 for a one-carat diamond. And if that’s not enough, larger diamonds can be ordered in advance.



Louis XIII Diamond Cocktail Ingredients
Shot of Remy Martin Louis XIII
Charles Heidsieck Champagne
2 drops of Angostura bitters
1 sugar cube
A fabulous diamond or distinctive item of jewellery

The Piano Bar, Sheraton Park Tower, 101 Knightsbridge SW1

Smoking is EVIL

On the train station platform this morning I was standing waiting for my train, having a cigarette and a little woman walks up to me and thrusts a leaflet at me, asking if I would like to read it. I didn't take it and I could see from the cover that it was a religious-based stop smoking leaflet. I politely said no, thank you, and she went off to wait for her train. I forgot my iPod this morning and walked right past the Metro stand, even though I was well early enough to get one, and therefore didn't have anything to read. So, after I finished me fag, I went and found the woman again and asked her for the leaflet. I figured it would at least give me something to read on the train.

So, according to the leaflet, which is distributed by the Apostolic Faith Mission (UK) on behalf of the Apostolic Faith Church in Oregon, USA, smoking is a sin, and cigarettes are the work of the devil. Seemingly in the same way that the temptation of eating is too great, but you don't see christians flogging themselves with birch branches for gobbling down a slice of toast or two do you?

http://www.apostolicfaith.org

Excert from the website:


"Just as the gauges on the dashboard alert us to impending problems, God alerts us to areas in our spiritual lives that need attention."

Do you hear that? God is your oil-warning light.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Kill Me Please

Adam Sandler
Kill Me

[spoken]
Ok, I just want to warn you that when I wrote this song I was listening to the Cure a lot.

[sung]
You don’t know how much I need you.
While you’re near me I don’t feel blue.
And when we kiss I know that you need me too.
I can’t believe I found a love that’s so pure and true.

But it all was bullshit.
It was a goddam joke.
And when I think of you linda,
I hope you fucking choke.

I hope you’re glad with what you’ve done to me.
I lay in bed all day long feeling melancholy.
You left me here all alone, tears running constantly.

Oh somebody kill me please,
Somebody kill me plee-ase,
I’m on my knees,
Pretty pretty please kill me.

I want to die.
Put a bullet in my head.

Buffy in the Buff? Sarah Michelle Gellar to Play Porn Star

Sarah Michelle Gellar will ditch her good girl film image and dive into the world of porn in an upcoming film titled "Southland Tales." The UK Sun reports the Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress will play "busty blonde Krysta Now in the saucy project, Southland Tales."

The movie will also star The Rock, Seann William Scott, Jon Lovitz, Justin Timberlake, Kevin Smith and Mandy Moore.

So, Buffy in the buff? Easy fellas, that's still not clear.

http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_2726881.shtml

Would now be a good time to remind everybody of the famous (infamous) "You can put it anywhere" line?

Hyperframe

You'll have to sit through an annoying ad first, but live with it, Hyperframe rocks. A 3d puzzle game, where you connect lines up on the cube. Gets increasingly hard, but wonderfully done, complete with amusingly crappy vocodered music.



http://www.shockwave.com/contentPlay/shockwave.jsp?id=hyperframe

Trampoline Accident

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Forces Of Nature - The Tornado

Heh, over on the National Geographic website you can create your own adverse weather conditions and watch as the generated tornado rips farmyards into tiny splinters.



For a more accurate representation of the damage caused by tornados it's a pity they didn't do a version ripping through a trailer park.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/forcesofnature/interactive/index.html?section=t

Monday, September 26, 2005

URL ingenuity

Does exactly what it says on the tin. You don't understand? Click the link, then you will.

Needs sound.

http://www.iiiiiiii.com/

Hyperframe

This game is incredibly addictive - like smoking, don't start. It's like much like a rubiks cube, but interesting and amusing, and unlike a rubiks cube it won't end up in pieces in the corner.

(And no, you can't take the stickers off.)

http://www.shockwave.com/contentPlay/shockwave.jsp?id=hyperframe

Dew

As I walked to work down the small hill from Syon Lane station this morning the grass on the huge playing field of the school next to the station was shimmering a silvery green - the heavy dew brought the coolness of autumn and that fresh, clean, crisp smell that I remember so well from my own school days.

PE on such a school morning was well looked forward to. The knowledge that it's not too cold, not too hot, the transition from the athletics of the summer gave way to the football and hockey of the autumn - less sedate, more team-based activities in the September sun. Somebody was going to get smacked with a hockey ball, my shoes would be covered in mud, and my books would smell of grass and sweat for the rest of the day.

September I remember as an early waking month. Back to school at the start, the later in the month my dad would wake me up early to go to the school playing fields and collect mushrooms for his breakfast. Some morning I would get up early to forage for conkers from the huge horse chestnut tree opposite my house. There would be rich pickings after the nightly winds and the other kids would be jealous of my huge bag of bullseyes. Each of these activities involved walking over the early morning grass and having my school shoes wet and covered in fresh dew.

That's just what I wanted to do this morning - walk from one side of that field to the other, shuffling my feet, getting them as wet as possible. Then for the rest of the day, as I feel my shoes dry off, I can be safe in my knowledge that I lived a little this morning.

Why is it that so many good memories seem to be only triggered by tiny, infrequent occurrences. Why can't I have that dewy freshness every morning?

Tommy

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Nude New Zealand MP takes stroll

Wearing nothing but copious amounts of body paint and a pair of pants, a New Zealand politician has taken a stroll through Auckland.

Green Party MP Keith Locke had pledged to strip off if Act Party leader Rodney Hide won the seat of his constituency.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4280316.stm

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Pain in the English

Look, look - a site dedicated to people being all up and anal about the many and varied uses of the english language.

Mike and Phil, you're going to love it.

http://www.painintheenglish.com/default.asp

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Internet maps reveal Roman villa

And again with the google wonderousness...

Latest technology proved an unexpected aid to unearthing the past when an Italian man decided to look at internet maps of his home.

Computer programmer Luca Mori found the remains of an ancient Roman villa when he browsed Google Earth maps showing satellite images of his local area.

His curiosity was sparked by unusual shading by his home in Sorbolo, Parma.

He contacted local archaeologists who investigated and confirmed it was once the location of a Roman villa.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4267238.stm

Balls of Steel

What do you do when the landing gear on your plane won't lock down? Have someone on the ground in a jeep pace the plane and beat it into place with a stick!

(Whilst it's flying 10 feet above the runway, and your' underneath it in a jeep)

Holy crap this is ballsy.

http://www.wftv.com/video/4983089/detail.html
Ji Lee's got a good schtick going - he takes speech bubble stickers and plasters 'em on posters and signs... then comes back later to photograph what people have written in 'em.



Speech Bubbles

Google saves baby's life.

Jesus, google IS taking over the world, I swear.

Howard and Melissa of Boca Raton, Florida found out first hand that the Internet can be a powerful tool for parents. A few weeks after they brought their premature twins, Andrew and Carly, home from the hospital Andrew had to be admitted to the ER. The doctors told them that the baby had a serious problem, that his hemoglobin levels had dropped from 14 (at birth) to 7. The doctors wanted to do an emergency blood transfusion immediately. Using his cell phone, Howard used Google to search for "hemoglobin" and "premature infant." The results were surprising. He found a medical journal article which said that it’s normal for preemie twins to have a drop in their hemoglobin levels during the first three months.

Howard gave the link to the doctors, and they spent a few hours researching it. When they returned, they "sheepishly admitted that our son was indeed fine - no treatment was necessary…Google literally saved our newborn son from having to endure an extremely dangerous, and totally unnecessary, blood transfusion."

http://www.bloggingbaby.com/entry/1234000620059549/

Artists erect giant pink bunny on mountain

An enormous pink bunny has been erected on an Italian mountainside where it will stay for the next 20 years.



http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1541732.html

404 - Not Found

Blogjam - Hello? Is it me you're looking for?
Team Dirty Tricks - yeaaah boy

404 Research Lab

Jetski Power - Cool Game



http://www.skivedomain.com/m3power/live/

Historic Cities

We would like Historic Cities a site to be a meeting place for the lovers of historic cities and to function as a virtual archive, which will constantly develop and grow. The content will be loaded gradually: first we will load several hundreds of high quality city maps which we scanned, and brief documented histories of some of the most important cities.

Is your city listed? Mine is!

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/

Death by Coke Machine

And what not to do when hacking a coke machine...

This site is dedicated to our dear son and brother Kevin Mackle, who was found dead in his Residence at Kuehner Hall, Bishop's University, Lennoxville Quebec on December 13th 1998, a day of sorrow for us, his family. A toppled Vendo Model Coca-Cola Machine crushed him. It was put in place, unsecured, by the Beaver Foods Company. On October 19th 1999, almost a year after Kevin's death, the Quebec Coroner, Dr. Rene Maurice Belanger issued a Coroner's Report on what he considered to be the facts of the case.

He really doesn't look like he needed any more sugary carbonated drinks.

http://www.cokemachineaccidents.com/

How To Hack A Soda Machine

How To Hack A Soda Machine. Most modern soda machines have little computers in them. The tiny RED LCD usually displays the data. The computer can be controlled by using certain buttons on the soda machine in different combinations. This can be used to check the temperature, see the amount of money (load and dump), and dump certain sodas. Will usually only work on newer machines that look like the one on the right. They need to have an LCD and also need to have some type of message on it "ICE COLD SODAS" This tells you it is running something.

http://www.sahaskatta.com/html/hacks_3.html

How to tell if a relationship is over

You find a dead pigeon...

http://www.depict.org/content/films/2003/relationship_over_320.html

The humble banana - on crash course toward extinction

The banana as we know it is on a crash course toward extinction. For scientists, the battle to resuscitate the world’s favorite fruit has begun—a race against time that just may be too late to win.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/5a4d4c3ee4d05010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

NZ finds Black Cocks hard to swallow

It was a bloody silly idea in the first place, but New Zealand's badminton world may finally have to concede that calling the national team the "Black Cocks" really is a bit too strong, the New Zealand Herald reports.

Badminton New Zealand adopted the name a year ago as "a gimmicky label to attract sponsors and fans". It worked to a degree, because the organisation was quickly innundated with cash offers from companies such as - you guessed it - condom manufacturers.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/15/nz_badminton_kerfuffle/

Monday, September 19, 2005

Man's static jacket sparks alert

An Australian man built up so much static electricity in his clothes as he walked that he burned carpets, melted plastic and sparked a mass evacuation.

Frank Clewer, of the western Victorian city of Warrnambool, was wearing a synthetic nylon jacket and a woollen shirt when he went for a job interview.

As he walked into the building, the carpet ignited from the 40,000 volts of static electricity that had built up.

"It sounded almost like a firecracker or something like that," he said.

"Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt," he told Australian radio.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4252692.stm

Maggie Thatcher

Whilst looking at the BBC news website, I found a recent picture of Maggie Thatcher. Now is it just my imagination, or is she really starting to look like her Spitting Image puppet?


Maggie Thatcher


Spitting Image Puppet

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Monday September 19, 2005

immure \ih-MYUR\, transitive verb:

  1. To enclose within walls, or as if within walls; hence, to shut up; to imprison; to incarcerate.
  2. To build into a wall.
  3. To entomb in a wall.
Not surprisingly, Sally shuddered at the thought of being immured in the black cave, to die slowly and hopelessly, far below the sunny hillside.
--Peter Pierce, "The Fiction of Gabrielle Lord," Australian Literary Studies, October 1999

True, there was a Mughal emperor in Delhi until 1857, but he was emperor in name only, the shadow of a memory, described by Lord Macaulay as 'a mock sovereign immured in a gorgeous state prison'.
--Anthony Read, The Proudest Day

When I tried to think clearly about this, I felt that my mind was immured, that it couldn't expand in any direction.
--Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon

Immured by privilege in a way of life that offered little scope, army wives were often enfeebled by boredom.
--Frances Spalding, Duncan Grant: A Biography

Immure comes from Medieval Latin immurare, from Latin in-, "in" + murus, "wall." It is related to mural, a painting applied to a wall.

Synonyms: cloister; imprison; incarcerate.

c-jump: Ski & Snowboard Race



Discover fundamentals of computer programming by playing a board game!

c-jump helps children to learn basics of programming languages, such as C, C++ and Java.

You know I want this, right?

http://www.c-jump.com/

Oh, and by the way, whilst I am talking about baord games, if there's anyone out there who could possibly explain the rules to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer boardgame, could you please take some time to explain it to me, because I paid 20p for it at a car boot sale and I am damn sure I need to get my money's worth.

Friday, September 16, 2005

The Boys of Iwo Jima

Each year my video production company is hired to go to Washington, D.C. with the eighth grade class from Clinton, Wisconsin where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall's trip was especially memorable.

On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history-that of the six brave men raising the American flag at the top of Mount Surabachi on the Island of Iwo Jima, Japan during WW II. Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, "What's your name and where are you guys from?

I told him that my name was Michael Powers and that we were from Clinton, Wisconsin.

"Hey, I'm a Cheesehead, too! Come gather around Cheeseheads, and I will tell you a story."

James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, D.C. to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good-night to his dad, who had previously passed away, but whose image is part of the statue. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington, D.C. but it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night. When all had gathered around he reverently began to speak. Here are his words from that night:

"My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called Flags of Our Fathers which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me. Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game, a game called "War." But it didn't turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of twenty-one, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say that to gross you out; I say that because there are generals who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years old.

(He pointed to the statue)

You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was taken, and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph. A photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection, because he was scared. He was eighteen years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys. Not old men.

The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the "old man" because he was so old. He was already twenty-four. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, "Let's go kill the enemy" or "Let's die for our country." He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, "You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers."

The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, "You're a hero." He told reporters, "How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only twenty-seven of us walked off alive?"

So you take your class at school. 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only twenty-seven of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of thirty-two, ten years after this picture was taken.

The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky, a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, "Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epson salts. Those cows crapped all night."

Yes, he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of nineteen. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite's producers, or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say, "No, I'm sorry sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back."

My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually he was sitting right there at the table eating his Campbell's soup, but we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn't want to talk to the press. You see, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died, and when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain.

When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, "I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. DID NOT come back."

So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time."

Suddenly the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero in his own eyes, but a hero nonetheless.

nice-tits.org

Legends: Companies choose domain names with unintendedly risqué double meanings.

Origins: In the Internet world, the domain names that guide customers to companies' web sites can sometimes be a bit confusing, as they lack spaces between words and often eschew punctuation for the sake of brevity. Domains for similarly-named companies can sometimes be mistaken for each other, and other domain names may seem to represent something entirely different than what was
intended.

One example of the latter category arose in June 2003. when Powergen, the UK's leading integrated gas and electricity company, supposedly picked a rather unfortunate domain name for the web site of their Italian subsidiary, Powergen, that sounded like a shopping place for persons looking to purchase industrial-strength vibrators: powergenitalia.com. But the folks at Powergen maintained that they had nothing to do with the choice of domain name and didn't even have an Italian division. The powergenitalia.com domain hosted the unrelated web site of a real Italian company (Powergen Italia) selling specialized battery products. They have evidently since adopted the less provocative domain name of batterychargerpowergen.it

http://www.snopes.com/business/names/domains.asp

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Weird Coincidence

Yesterday I had iTunes one random ("it's on random") and the following two songs played one after the other:

1. When The Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin
2. City Of New Orleans - Arlo Guthrie

Do dee doo doo (imagine a man, going on a journey beyond sight and sound...)

Where to buy Drugs

Certainly not in Brixton at 2am, that's for fucking sure. Not unless you want to be beaten by a crackhead and have your wallet stolen.

Reproduced here in all it's glory is the average street price of various drugs in 15 towns and cities across the UK, from a survey of 40 frontline drugs agencies carried out by drugs information charity DrugScope.

Can't find work, get on your bike...


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/4206388.stm

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Yes, chocolate-lovers, the spectacular Chocolate Fountain really does flow with lashings of liquid choccy. All you have to do is fill it up, turn it on and watch in wonder. Once you've recovered from the shock of seeing those mesmerising curtains of cascading Belgian chocolate you can get busy dipping your delicacies into the fountain's warm liquid embrace. Strawberries are stupendous, fudge is fantabulous and marshmallows are magnificent (forgive the alliteration - we're feeling wonderfully Wonka-esque). But the truth is, pretty much anything you can shove on a stick tastes amazing when it's covered in warm, gooey chocolate.

Origins of Band Names

AC/DC:

The lead guitarist for the band, Angus Young, had a sister who sewed. the band looked on the bottom of the sewing machine and they saw ACDC with a lightning bolt in the middle. they thought it sounded cool.

Steely Dan:

The band's name (like a number of others) is derived from the works of William S. Burroughs: Steely Dan is the name of a giant flying steam-powered dildo that appeared in Burroughs' book Naked Lunch. Fagen once explained, "We just wanted to give the band a little more thrust than most other bands."

http://www.amiright.com/names/origins

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Patients put down

DOCTORS working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leave them to die in agony as they evacuated.

With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.

One New Orleans doctor told how she "prayed for God to have mercy on her soul" after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.

Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials.

One emergency official, William Forest McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,16566858-5001022,00.html

Monday, September 12, 2005

40 Things That Only Happen In Movies

  1. It is always possible to find a parking spot directly outside or opposite the building you are visiting.
  2. When paying for a taxi, don't look at your wallet as you take out a note. Just grab one out at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.
And 38 More here:

http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/features/20moviethings.htm

Friday, September 09, 2005

Self-Defence - English Styleee

"If you have a set of keys, I want to see you use them."

http://www.dumpalink.com/media/1121087557

Errr, errrrmmm...

There is no explanation for this because I really can't explain it.

http://www.dumpalink.com/media/1124022433

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Channel 4 Feck Fest

F**K C**T M***ER-F**KER

Extremely NSFW

http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=1199

Beatbox Effex

http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=1519

Hardcore - You Know The Score!

Funny thing is I really did used to look like this during most of the early 90s.

http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=658

Jungle Love - Oh Ee Oh Ee OH!

Written by god himself and handed down to the greatest band in the universe - The Motherfucking Time

http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=1821

Asian Numa Numa

These guys really do look like they are having fun. And the coreography must have taken ages...

http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=2471

Make Yourself a "Magic Booty-Hole"

Rednecks! God love 'em.

http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=1156

Last Night - Headbanging

Last night, after a bit of a night out, I was walking home from the bus stop and I was listening to Saxon's "Princess of The Night" on my iPod. It was really REALLY loud, and I was head-banging walking down the street - so much so that I couldn't walk in a straight line, which only served to exacerbate the drunkenness I was feeling and displaying.

There were people behind me, but upon seeing me, kept a safe distance and gave a wide berth.

It wasn't until I took the earphones out that I realised just exactly how loud the music was.

It all started yesterday whilst I was re-organising some music on my pc and found all this old 80s metal and hard rock. So here, for you viewing pleasure is my current metal playlist.
  • Thunderstruck - AC/DC
  • Enter Sandman - Metallica
  • Sweet Child Of Mine - G&R
  • Princess Of The Night - Saxon
  • You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
  • Wildside - Motley Crue
  • Power And The Glory - Saxon
  • Pour Some Sugar on Me - Def Leppard
  • In My Darkest Hour - Megadeth
  • Live & Let Die - G&R
  • Welcome To the Jungle - G&R
  • We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister

And here is my want list:
  • Dio - Holy Diver
  • Judas Priest - Breaking The Law, Johnny B Goode, Monsters of rock, Come and get it, pretty much anything from the Ram It Down album
  • Keel
  • W.A.S.P. - The WHOLE Live In The Raw album AND Inside the Electric Circus Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water, Child in Time, Black Night, Highway Star, Strange Kinda Woman
  • Def Leppard - Animal, Armageddon It, Hysteria
  • Bon Jovi - Livin' on a prayer, Keep the faith, Blaze Of Glory
  • Van Halen - Jump - Why Can't This Be Love
  • Europe - Final Countdown

Kanye West - You Go Boy!

Kanye West used live TV to his advantage when he went into a tirade against President Bush (and the media) during NBC's Hurricane Katrina fundraiser. This clip is worth seeing, if only for the perplexed look on Mike Meyer's face!

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2678975?htv=12&htv=12

Very Very Sad Interview

Katrina! Damn youz.

http://www.dumpalink.com/media/1126085192

Brilliant Political Commentary

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Japanese Hentai Game (NSFW)

Who makes this stuff? BTW it's more fun if you don't even bother to try to avoid the tentacles.

Jungle Girl

NSFW, obvisouly.

What Really Happened

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV. ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time. The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF. link

"2 minutes ago the President drove past in his convoy. But what has happened in Biloxi all day long is truly unbelievable. Suddenly recovery units appeared, suddenly bulldozers were there, those hadn't been seen here all the days before, and this in an area, in which it really wouldn't be necessary to do a big clean up, because far and wide nobody lives here anymore, the people are more inland in the city. The President travels with a press baggage [big crew]. This press baggage got very beautiful pictures which are supposed to say, that the President was here and help is on the way, too. The extent of the natural disaster shocked me, but the extent of the staging is shocking me at least the same way. With that back to Hamburg." Daily Kos

“But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast -- black and white, rich and poor, young and old -- deserve far better from their national government" - LA Senator Mary Landrieu senate.gov

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/bush_orleans_photos.html

Friday, September 02, 2005

Yahoo statement on the Black/White, Looting/Finding Controversy

Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/page/photostatement

To Yahoo! News readers:

News photos are an especially popular section of Yahoo! News. In part, this is because we present thousands of news photos from some of the leading news services, including The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France Press. To make this volume of photos available in a timely manner, we present the photos and their captions as written, edited and distributed by the news services with no additional editing at Yahoo! News.

In recent days, a number of readers of Yahoo! News have commented on differences in the language in two Hurricane Katrina-related photo captions (from two news services). Since the controversy began, the supplier of one of the photos – AFP – has asked all its clients to remove the photo from their databases. Yahoo! News has complied with the AFP request.

Here are a few of the postings that have commented on the photo caption language:

Flickr

Salon

Romenesko

Gothamist

You can comment on the issue on this message board.

Yahoo! News regrets that these photos and captions, viewed together, may have suggested a racial bias on our part. We remain committed to bringing our readers the full collection of photos as transmitted by our wire service partners.

Neil Budde
General Manager
Yahoo! News

Camel Spiders Again

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Pirhanas vs Mouse

I think these are pirhanas. If they are not pirhanas, then someone has trained killer goldfish and filed down their teeth.

http://www.drunkencat.com/media/1125149295

Lion vs Hyena

Ahh, poor little lions, getting beaten up by a pack of hyenas. They do get their revenge though. This is a pretty amazing video.

http://www.drunkencat.com/media/1125322986

Yahoo / AP Racists?

Are there people working at Yahoo news who can be called racists? Why is a white woman finding bread and black man looting a grocery store, when it looks like they're doing exactly the same....

http://yahooracists.ytmnd.com/

Pink Steel

The gods (or godesses?) of Gay Heavy Metal.

http://www.pinksteel.org

Splashing in the Water

There is a small boy, thin with straight brown hair and freckles on his nose, who walks over the top of a hill. It is early in the morning, about 7:30 and the sun has recently risen. There is a touch of dew on the grass and spider strings glisten with drops.

Is it is slightly chilling but he can feel a warmth from the sun as gets higher in the sky. He doesn't have a destination. He is simply walking. In his pocket is a piece of string and he fiddles with it while walking along.

He is slightly tired from the early morning start but feels good to be out and breathing the fresh air. As he walks to the top of the hill, he can now see down the other side. There is a valley down below with a tiny pond

He runs down the hill. It feels like it takes ages until he gets to the pond. Someone has built a small dock into the pond. He runs onto it. Slightly out of breath, he sits on the dock and removes his socks and shoes.

He sticks his toes gingerly into the water. The water is cold but he likes the slight sting. He eventually warms up and is able to submerge his feet to the ankles.

Suddenly, it feels to quiet so wildly he starts swimming his legs kicking up water. He kicks faster and faster so that all he can hear is the swooshing noise of the water being redistributed. Thud, thud, thud. It feels good on his feet and legs as he hits the solid feeling water.

He is happy.

Fake Moon Landings?

I knew it. I bloody knew it...

http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=385

Ryanair and EasyJet

Looks like these two are having a bit of a barney.

Ryanair -
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=05&month=aug&story=cst-en-240805

EasyJet -
http://www.easyjet.com/EN/News/ireland.html

Camel Spider vs. Lizard

We saw some camel spider pictures a while back that made us cry in our sleep. Watching a video of a camel spider eating a lizard is pretty much the scariest thing ever.

http://www.fazed.org/video/view/?id=85

Please forgive the dumb shit American soldier commentary. It's probably the first time they've seen something eat like that - other than their mothers at Burger King of course.

Oooh!

101 Childrens Show Theme Tunes

All for you, really, 101 of them!

http://www.fuggled.co.uk/Nostalgia/Songs.htm

Harsh - But Brilliant

This deserves a wider audience.

http://www.ekincaglar.com/coin/flash.html

This almost made me cry this morning…

Katrina will scar US 'for years'

US states stricken by Hurricane Katrina will take years to recover, President George W Bush said after he flew over devastated areas on the Gulf coast.

He vowed his cabinet will take over the aid operation for "one of the worst natural disasters" the US had seen.

An extra 10,000 troops are being sent to the worst-hit areas in the states of Louisiana and Mississippi.

New Orleans is to be fully evacuated, amid fears thousands may have died there as flood waters swept the city.

With most of the low-lying city now submerged, its remaining residents have no electricity and are running out of fresh water and food.

Plans have been announced to evacuate tens of thousands of people from New Orleans - including some 20,000 sheltering in its crowded Superdome stadium.

Army helicopters have been helping survivors to safety

Asked how many had died in the city, Mayor Ray Nagin said "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

BBC correspondent Alastair Leithead says widespread looting and the failure to stop water pouring in from burst embankments have added to the panic in the city, and most people are now desperate to leave.

Hundreds of soldiers and police have been diverted from rescue work to law enforcement duties, amid reports that heavily-armed gangs are ransacking the city.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said she was angered to see the crisis bringing out the worst in people.

'Doubly devastating'

President Bush's aircraft circled low over the stricken region on Wednesday as it flew him to Washington, ending his month-long break in Texas a few days earlier than scheduled.

As he passed over towns whose rooftops alone remained visible above flood waters, Mr Bush said: "It's devastating."

"It's got to be doubly devastating on the ground."

Later addressing the nation from the White House, the president said the relief effort would initially focus on restoring power, communication and transport links.

He also announced the release of fuel from federal reserves to stabilise oil output, severely dented by hurricane damage to rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

"This will help take some pressure off the gas price," Mr Bush said.

'Late response'

With conditions still deteriorating, the government has declared a public health emergency along the whole of the Gulf coast to speed up the delivery of food, water and fuel to the region.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said 1,700 truckloads of essential supplies were on their way there.

Medical shelters are being set up offering 10,000 beds, while the US military is providing dozens of rescue helicopters and boats.

The Pentagon has ordered 10,000 extra national guardsmen to be despatched to Louisiana and Mississippi.

This will bring to 21,000 the total number of troops in areas hit by the hurricane, including Alabama and Florida.


President Bush flew over areas worst hit by the hurricane

Officials in Mississippi state, to the east of Louisiana, have warned the death toll is likely to climb above the current 110.

The state's Harrison County bore the brunt of Hurricane Katrina as it slammed into Biloxi and Gulfport before heading inland.

Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg has accused the Bush administration of taking too long to respond.

"We are watching this devastation unfold on our televisions for days and you have to ask: where is the federal government?" the Reuters news agency quotes him as saying.

"We should have had a significant amount of troops and supplies there on the ground Monday."

Anger has also been reported among some of the poorer people hit hard by the hurricane.

"Many people didn't have the financial means to get out," Alan LeBreton, a Biloxi resident told Reuters news agency.

"That's a crime and people are angry about it," he said.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Watch Me Change

I have absolutely no idea what purpose this could possibly serve other than to amuse me for a good 30 hour or so.

Pick the body style, hair, clothes, and then get changed into clothes of your choice, comes with little dance too. Now this is what the internet is for.

http://www.watchmechange.com/

Oh and hardly surprisingly it's by Gap.

Pets - Stoopid Pets

Don't you just love it when pets do really stoopid things? I know I do...

http://www.plsthx.com/Funny_videos/346_Cat_Jump.html

Little Kid Prank

If I had a six year old kid I would probably do something like this, even though it quite obviously scares the shit out of the little fella...

http://www.nothingtodo.co.uk/view.php?id=1337

Breakdancing

This is one of the best break-dancing videos I have seen. And I've seen a few.

http://www.weakgame.com/?show=1894

Drivers

Ah, drivers of the non-male variety are celebrated here.

http://www.gophergas.com/funstuff/womendrivers.htm

Cool College Prank

This is a cool prank, where a guy decides to randomly break out in song in the middle of an ivy-league school lecture.

http://www.kwinkies.com/index.php?mode=blog&id=3490

Ugly Celebrity Babies

Ok, ok, so it's only a bit of fun, but this site gives you a glimpse of what the resulting babies might look like if celebrities mated. I really do think that the mock-up of Kevin Costner/Tori Spelling's potential love child looks an awful lot like Eddie Izzard.


Eddie Izzard


Kevin Costner/Tori Spelling

http://www.iol.ie/~bugscave/mated.htm

Penis Head

No, but really...

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1512361.html

Movie Time


Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Ruminations

My dog is my best friend, so I didn't mind too much killing all those people when he told me to. What *did* get me upset was the furry little bastard turning me in for the reward.

It would be nice if the Grim Reaper gave 24 hours notice before taking us, allowing enough time to say goodbye and arrange our affairs so we could depart this world in a dignified manner. I'd then be able to rest in peace knowing that my obituary would read, "Local man found barricaded in basement, suffocated inside world's largest recorded bean burrito."

Everyone at work was very surprised when they found out that I smoke. They'll be even more surprised when they find out I only smoke when I drink.

If I were a conquering alien, I'd skip right past New York and Washington, DC, and head straight for Mount Rushmore so I could laser-beam some pimples, earrings and Groucho glasses on the presidents. Nothing like a little humor to win over a hostile crowd.

If I were a talking dog, I'd never speak to anyone -- unless I met someone having a bad acid trip, in which case I'd try to help talk them through it. Then, when they really started to freak out because of the talking dog thing, I'd just laugh and laugh.

Ruminations

Memorable Quotes

"I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous, everyone hasn't met me yet."

"The greatest possession you have is the 24 hours directly in front of you."

"Life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them."

"If you need a friend, get a dog."

"The 1961 Ferrari, two-fifty GT California. Less than a hundred were made. My father spent three years restoring this car. It is his love, it is his passion...It is his fault he didn't lock the garage."

"The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing. Only a person who risks is free."

"You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where the hell she is."

"Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac."

"Every man dies. Not every man really lives."

"Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breathe through their noses when they're eating sandwiches."

"Did you ever walk in a room and forget why you walked in? I think that's how dogs spend their lives."

"Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?"

"Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy."

"To alcohol, the nights that you’ll never remember, with the friends you’ll never forget!"

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world"

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

"There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past."

"A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking."

"I am so busy doing nothing... that the idea of doing anything - which as you know, always leads to something - cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything."

"There's very little advice in men's magazines, because men don't think there's a lot they don't know. Women do. Women want to learn. Men think, "I know what I'm doing, just show me somebody naked."

Google Globe Trotting

What a brilliant idea.

http://googleglobetrotting.com/

Condoms

This is what you're going to get...

http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=wnBC7qV4u1g

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Tequila

Here's a great website I found giving lots of useful and interesting information about tequila. He even has a little pocket guide that will help you decode the complexities of buying good tequila.

http://www.ianchadwick.com/tequila/

And whilst wondering where on earth I could buy good tequila in the uk I found this site, from where you can purchase a whole host of premium brands (at premium prices though)

http://www.thedrinkshop.com

They sell Casa Noble, Corralejo, El Jimador, Gran Centanario, Patron, Gran Patron (at £188 a bottle), Herencia, Herradura, Jose Cuervo, La Penca, Sauze, and Tarantula. Buy me one of each and I'll be very happy.

Dulwich, London, UK

I was in the East Dulwich Tavern, in Dulwich last night with my friends John and Amy. I went into the toilet, for a slash, and overheard a man on the phone talking to his friend. He asked, "I am in Dulwich, where the fuck are you?"

Surely, more accurately, he should have asked, "I am in Dulwich, where the fuck am I?"

Friday, August 19, 2005

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Friday August 19, 2005

ephemeral \ih-FEM-er-ul\, adjective:
  1. Beginning and ending in a day; existing only, or no longer than, a day; as, an ephemeral flower.
  2. Short-lived; existing or continuing for a short time only.
In the 1980s, Lt. Col. Oliver North unwittingly proved that e-mail, so apparently ephemeral, is harder to expunge than paper documents comfortingly run through a shredder.
--Amy Harmon, "E-Mail Is Treacherous. So Why Do We Keep Trusting It?" New York Times, March 26, 2000

In "Mississippi Mermaid," the planter character played by Belmondo, a fellow who has sought a safe, permanent love, is liberated when he chooses to follow the ephemeral.
--Vincent Canby, "Truffaut's Clear-Eyed Quest." New York Times, September 14, 1975

Rather, we must separate what is ephemeral... from the things that are of lasting importance.
--Patrick Smith, Japan: A Reinterpretation

Ephemeral derives from Greek ephemeros, from epi, upon + hemera, day.

Synonyms: passing, short-lived, transient, transitory, fugacious

The House

This is genuinely scary. I didn't make it right to the end. Please let me know if you do.

The House

Walken 2008

Unfortunately Walken2008 was a hoax, damn shame that, but at least we can get the satisfaction of seeing him interview Bush.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Thursday August 18, 2005

parley \PAR-lee\, noun:
  • A conference or discussion, especially with an enemy, as with
    regard to a truce or other matters.
The government recognized his knack for parleying with tribes, and it sent him all over the West.
--Geoffrey O'Gara, What You See in Clear Water

Whether the Indians came out to parley or, seeing that the fort was about to fall, came out to surrender is unclear.
--Willard Sterne Randall, George Washington: A Life

In case of Servia's non-compliance with the ultimatum the army will invade the kingdom without further parley.
--"Austria Ready to Invade Servia, Sends Ultimatum," New York Times, July 24, 1914

Parley comes from Old French parlée, from parler, "to speak," from Medieval Latin parabolare, from Late Latin parabola, "a proverb, a parable, a similitude," from Greek parabole, "a comparison, a placing beside," from paraballein, "to throw beside, hence to compare," from para-, "beside" + ballein, "to throw."

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Wednesday August 17, 2005

dilatory \DIL-uh-tor-ee\, adjective:
  1. Tending to put off what ought to be done at once; given to
    procrastination.
  2. Marked by procrastination or delay; intended to cause
    delay; -- said of actions or measures.
I am inclined to be dilatory, and if I had not enjoyed extraordinary luck in life and love I might have been living with my mother at that very moment, doing nothing.
--Carroll O'Connor, I Think I'm Outta Here

And what is a slumlord? He is not a man who own expensive property in fashionable neighborhoods, but one who owns only rundown property in the slums, where the rents are lowest and the where the payment is most dilatory, erratic and undependable.
--Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson

Dilatory is from Latin dilatorius, from dilator, "a dilatory person, a loiterer," from dilatus, past participle of differre, "to delay, to put off," from dis-, "apart, in different directions" + ferre, "to carry."

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Tuesday August 16, 2005

numinous \NOO-min-uhs; NYOO-\, adjective:
  1. Of or pertaining to a numen; supernatural.
  2. Indicating or suggesting the presence of a god; divine; holy.
  3. Inspiring awe and reverence; spiritual.
Smoking is a ritual, and it has all the numinous force of a ritual.
--Thomas W. Laqueur, The New Republic, September 18, 1995

All Quests are concerned with some numinous Object, the Waters of Life, the Grail, buried treasure, etc.
--W. H. Auden, "Secular Hobbitism" review of The Fellowship of the Ring, by J. R. R. Tolkien, New York Times

Our culture is not much concerned with the numinous, but in language we preserve many of the marks of a culture that is.
--Richard Mitchell, Less Than Words Can Say

My sense of the numinous is generally keenest upstate, in the fields and forest that surround my old schoolhouse.
--Winifred Gallagher, Working on God

Numinous is from Latin numen, literally a "nod of the head" (as in giving a command), hence "divine power."

Monday, August 15, 2005

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Monday August 15, 2005

enmity \EN-mih-tee\, noun:
  • Hatred; ill will; hostile or unfriendly disposition.
I learned, of course,... that the flames of infatuation can quickly become ashes of enmity and contempt.
--Kathleen Norris, The Virgin of Bennington

In the course of our conversation he reverted to yesterday's aphorism about it being our joint task to guide our two peoples out of their old enmity into new amity.
--Charles Kessler (editor and translator), Berlin in Lights

There were also always those I rubbed the wrong way (sometimes to the point of outright enmity) by being too brash or too arrogant or too ambitious or too precociously successful -- or by not being inhibited or tactful enough to refrain from writing about my career.
--Norman Podhoretz, Ex-Friends

Enmity derives from Old French enemistié, ultimately from Latin inimicus, "an enemy," from in-, "not" + amicus, "friend," from amare, "to love."

Synonyms: animosity, antipathy, hostility, rancor.

Who says baseball isn't dangerous?

Mike Cameron and Carlos Beltran are outfielders for the NY Mets. Last night, they really "met" each other.

Update:

Cameron broke his nose, had multiple fractures of both cheekbones and a slight concussion.

Oral Histories From Sept. 11

Oral Histories From Sept. 11 Compiled by the New York Fire Department - The New York Times

A rich vein of city records from Sept. 11, including more than 12,000 pages of oral histories rendered in the voices of 503 firefighters, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians, were made public on Aug. 12. The New York Times has published all of them.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/met_WTC_histories_full_01.html

Transporter 2



I know someone who's going to like this.

Ayds

This is for all those people I have been telling, and who didn't believe me, about a 1970s weightloss/slimming product called Ayds.

See, I wasn't just dreaming it.

http://www.luckykazoo.com/media/2005/08/lose-weight-with-aids.html

Egg Babies



"The Egg Babies are individually hand sculpted in polymer clay. The babies range in size from 2 to 5 inches.

The eggshell underscores the fragility of the life of a baby in the womb."

Oh god and I just ate breakfast, bleuch!

http://www3.telus.net/camilleallen/camilleallen/id9.htm

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Sunday August 14, 2005

pari passu \PAIR-ih-PASS-oo\, adverb:
  • At an equal pace or rate.
Expand the state and [its] destructive capacity necessarily expands too, pari passu.
--Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World From the Twenties to the Eighties

Independent hedge funds can sell their holdings in a stock all at once, but if a hedge fund is part of a mutual fund company, it generally must sell pari passu... with the company's mutual funds that hold the same stock, constraining flexibility.
--Geraldine Fabrikant, "Should You Bristle at These Hedges?" New York Times, November 8, 1998

Pari passu literally means "with equal step," from Latin pari, ablative of par, "equal" + passu, ablative of passus, "step."

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Saturday August 13, 2005

tryst \TRIST; TRYST\, noun:
  • An appointment (as between lovers) to meet; also, an appointed
    place or time of meeting.
  • intransitive verb: To mutually agree to meet at a certain place; to keep a tryst.
And it bothers me that I begin to worry if she's planning a tryst with my handsome neighbour.
--Anita Nair, The Better Man

Having left a "Dear John" letter for her husband on the kitchen table, she set off to the airport, where she waited, and waited. Of course, Henry had entirely forgotten
about the tryst, and she had to return home crestfallen.
--"The serial seducer who took Amis's wife," Times (London), May 17, 2000

Once Nick goes into the kitchen to tryst with Martha, it is Ms. Kurtz's turn to let loose with some fireworks.
--Frank Rich, Hot Seat

Scientists are hoping the cosmos will bear witness to a romantic rendezvous today as a spacecraft attempts a Valentine's Day "tryst" with an asteroid called Eros.
--Nigel Hawkes, "Eros beckons spacecraft for cosmic tryst," Times (London), February 14, 2000

Tryst is from Middle English triste, tryste, "a station to which game was driven (in hunting)," from Old French triste, "a station to which game was driven, a watch post," probably of Scandinavian origin.

Friday, August 12, 2005

Word Of The Day Catch-Up

Word of the Day for Thursday August 11, 2005

nugatory \NOO-guh-tor-ee; NYOO-\, adjective:
  1. Trifling; insignificant; inconsequential.
  2. Having no force; inoperative; ineffectual.
Tygiel's forte as a historian is his eye for what may appear nugatory or marginal but, when focused upon, illuminates the temper of a given moment.
--Roberto Gonzlez Echevarria, "From Ruth to Rotisserie," New York Times, July 2, 2000

Jacoby's offense was no offense -- or an error so nugatory
as to demand no more than a one-sentence explanation.
--Lance Morrow, "In Boston, a Foolish Consistency of Little Minds," Time, July 19, 2000

Socialism no longer restrains; trade unions do so much less than they did; moral inhibitions over the acquisition and display of wealth are nugatory.
--John Lloyd, "If not socialism, what will persuade the rich willingly to pay more taxes to help the poor and preserve a decent society?" New Statesman, August 2, 1996

Nugatory comes from Latin nugatorius, from nugari, "to trifle," from nugae, "jests, trifles."



Word of the Day for Wednesday August 10, 2005

sojourn \SOH-juhrn; so-JURN\,

intransitive verb:
  • To stay as a temporary resident; to dwell for a time.
noun:
  • A temporary stay.
Though he has sojourned in Southwold, wandered in Walberswick, dabbled in Dunwich, ambled through Aldeburgh and blundered through Blythburgh, Smallweed has never set foot in Orford.
--Smallweed, "The trouble with hope," The Guardian, April 14, 2001

Yet he is now an accomplished student and speaker of English, a literary editor and television producer, someone who has sojourned in Paris and attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
--William H. Gass, "Family and Fable in Galilee," New York Times, April 17, 1988

As chance would have it, Degas's five-month sojourn in New Orleans coincided with an extraordinarily contentious period in the stormy political history of the city.
--Christopher Benfey, Degas in New Orleans

During that long sojourn in Sligo, from 1870 to 1874, he had lessons from a much loved nursemaid, Ellie Connolly; later he received coaching in spelling and dictation from Esther Merrick, a neighbour who lived in the Sexton's house by St John's, and who read him quantities of verse.
--R. F. Foster, W.B. Yeats: A Life

Sojourn comes from Old French sojorner, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin subdiurnare, from Latin sub-, "under, a little over" + Late Latin diurnus, "lasting for a day," from Latin dies, "day."



Word of the Day for Tuesday August 9, 2005

captious \KAP-shuhs\, adjective:
  1. Marked by a disposition to find fault or raise objections.
  2. Calculated to entrap or confuse, as in an argument.
The most common among those are captious individuals who can find nothing wrong with their own actions but everything wrong with the actions of everybody else.
--"In-Closet Hypocrites," Atlanta Inquirer, August 15, 1998

Mr Bowman had, I think, been keeping Christmas Eve, and was a little inclined to be captious: at least, he was not on foot very early, and to judge from what I could hear, neither men nor maids could do anything to please him.
--M. R. James, The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Stories

Most authors would prefer readers such as Roiphe over captious academic critics.
--Steven Moore, "Old Flames," Washington Post, November 26, 2000

With the imperturbablest bland clearness, he, for five hours long, keeps answering the incessant volley of fiery captious questions.
--Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

Captious is derived from Latin captiosus, "sophistical, captious, insidious," from captio, "a taking, a fallacy, sophism," from capere, "to take, to seize."

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Friday August 12, 2005

ubiquitous \yoo-BIK-wih-tuhs\, adjective:
  • Existing or being everywhere, or in all places, at the same time.
In spite of the ubiquitous beggars, gypsies and 'naked urchins', Skopje was an attractive town in the early part of the century.
--Anne Sebba, Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image

Airborne gambling, shopping and videoconferencing may all be ubiquitous in the future.
--Peter H. Lewis, "The Cybercompanion," New York Times, February 7, 1999

Adding to my perplexity, this lack of clarity even appeared evident among the best and brightest sociologists, historians, literary scholars, art historians, those
working in cultural studies, American Studies, and journalism; the problem looked to be ubiquitous.
--Michael Kammen, American Culture, American Tastes

Before Tarzan, nobody understood just how big, how ubiquitous, how marketable a star could be.
--John Taliaferro, Tarzan Forever

Ubiquitous derives, via French, from Latin ubique, "everywhere," from ubi, "where." The noun form is ubiquity.

Bush

The U.S. Postal Service created a stamp earlier this year with a picture of President Bush to honor his achievements while in office. However, it was found that the stamp was not sticking to envelopes. A commission to determine the reason for the defect was formed.

After thorough testing, the commission published the following findings:

1. The stamp was found to be in perfect order.
2. There was nothing wrong with the adhesive.
3. People were just spitting on the wrong side.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

U.N. agency urges Iran to stop nuclear activities

VIENNA, Austria (CNN) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors passed a resolution Thursday asking Iran to suspend its nuclear activities, according to a Western diplomat at the meeting in Austria.

The resolution was "somewhat amended from its original form, which expressed "serious concern" about the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. CNN is awaiting a copy of the new resolution to compare it to the old.

The resolution -- written by France, Britain and Germany -- urges Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment activities, including uranium conversion activities at its Isfahan plant.

Those activities were restarted Wednesday after Iran removed IAEA seals on its nuclear equipment there.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/08/11/iran.iaea/index.html

Iran in nuclear sanctions warning

Iran has warned it would be a "grave miscalculation" for the US and EU to refer Tehran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme.

The warning came after Iran broke UN seals at its nuclear plant at Isfahan, making it fully operational.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called on European Union countries to continue dialogue with Iran.

EU countries have proposed a resolution to the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna calling for Iran to halt work.

But Iran's chief negotiator at the talks there said Tehran had an absolute right to produce nuclear fuel.

The Isfahan plant is Iran's main uranium conversion facility.

Conversion is an early stage in the nuclear fuel cycle, turning raw uranium - known as yellowcake - into the feedstock for enriched uranium.

Uranium enriched to a low level is used to produce nuclear fuel, while further enrichment makes it suitable for use in atomic weapons.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4140258.stm

Pakistan and India, Rattling Sabres Again

Actually it seems that Pakistan is doing the rattling this time.

"Pakistan says it has fired its first cruise missile capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads.

The Babur missile has a range of 500km (310miles), a military spokesman said.

The launch comes days after Pakistan and neighbouring rival India agreed to give each other advance notice of future nuclear missile tests.

India had not been informed about Thursday's test because the agreement did not cover the type of missile fired on Thursday, the spokesman said.

The agreement "does not cover pre-notification of cruise missile tests," Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Naeem Khan told Associated Press.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4140692.stm

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Whoopee Cushion Bomb

AUSTRALIA: A bus driver sparked a major alert after finding a 'suspicious parcel' but it turned out to be a whoopee cushion

He became concerned after spotting the package on the rear seat of his bus as he came to the end of his route in Sydney

He noticed it made a popping sound when touched and, fearing it could be an explosive device, called police.

"It was an unattended item, emitting a popping sound. Just as a precaution we investigated. It's a whoopee cushion," police said.

Source: London Metro

Friday, July 29, 2005

BBC News Can't Keep Up

Things are happening so fast today that it seems the BBC News website is finding it hard to keep up with all the details:

"Three more failed London bomb suspects are reported to be in custody following armed raids in the UK capital and Rome.

The London arrests are thought to be the men wanted for the 21 July Oval Tube and No 26 bus attacks. A third bomb suspect is already being held.

The fourth suspect, wanted for the attempted Shepherd's Bush Tube attack, has been arrested in Rome, said the Italian interior minister.

...

Anti-terrorist police are still looking for a fourth suspect in connection with an attempt to bomb a train at Shepherd's Bush, and possibly a fifth man."

Come on guys, sort your news out.

TRansexual Shaving Cream

I use this type of shaving cream. What does that say about me? Hmmm.

New name for 'war on terror'

The Bush administration is abandoning the phrase "war on terror" to better express the fight against al-Qaeda and other groups as an ideological struggle as much as a military mission.

The move is designed to reflect the wider US campaign against terror

While the slogan - first used by President George W Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks - may still be heard from time to time, the White House says it will increasingly be couched in other language.

In recent days, senior administration figures have been speaking publicly of "a global struggle against the enemies of freedom", and of the need to use all "tools of statecraft" to defeat them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4719169.stm

Microsoft "Genuine Advantage" cracked in 24h

AV sez, "This week, Microsoft started requiring users to verifiy their serial number before using Windows Update. This effort to force users to either buy XP or tell them where you got the illegal copy is called 'Genuine Advantage.' It was cracked within 24 hours."

Before pressing 'Custom' or 'Express' buttons paste this text to the address bar and press enter:

     javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')

It turns off the trigger for the key check.

100 Photographs that Changed the World



Life Magazine's 100 Photogrpahs that changed the world.

Terrorists on my Doorstep



Most of them have moved out now, to Birmingham (thanks Brummies!) and elsewhere, but here's a quick map of raids on addresses in my area. Incidents and raids are black dots, I live at the red dot.

Yet Another Reason the Moon Landings Were Faked

Early February 2003: The space shuttle Columbia broke into small pieces as it re-entered the atmosphere. This failure was attributed to damage sustained during the take-off fifteen days earlier when a piece of foam covering the fuels tanks broke off and hit the shuttle.

Seven astronauts – Rick Husband, William McCool, Ilan Ramon, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, and Laurel Clark - died when Columbia broke up. more...

26th July 2005: Nasa has launched its first manned space mission in two-and-a-half years as space shuttle Discovery blasted off on its 12-day flight at 1039 local time (1539 BST) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. more...

US space agency officials said they were happy with the launch, despite the sighting of what appeared to be some debris falling around the vehicle during the flight to orbit.

28th July 2005: Nasa grounds its shuttle fleet after large pieces of foam debris peeled off Discovery's external fuel tank during Tuesday's launch. more...

Now look, they can't even get this right, after two years of changes, enahancements, alterations in both the technology and procedures.

Is anybody else thinking that this is yet more circumstantial, yet compounding evidence that the moon landing were faked?

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Friday July 29, 2005

refulgent \rih-FUL-juhnt\, adjective:
  1. Shining brightly; radiant; brilliant; resplendent.
If Moore was not quite a burned-out case, his once refulgent light flickered only dimly in his sad last years.
--Martin Filler, "The Spirit of '76," New Republic, July 9, 2001

With its improbable towers tilting against themselves and its titanium sheathing in full refulgent glow, it brings on a question that the world has not enjoyed asking itself since the first moon landings: If this is possible, what isn't?
--Richard Lacayo, "The Frank Gehry Experience," Time, June 26, 2000

To the Renaissance, they [the Middle Ages] were nothing but a dank patch of history, a barren stretch of time between luminous antiquity and an equally refulgent present.
--Justin Davidson, "On the Record," Newsday, January 19, 1997

Refulgent comes from the present participle of Latin refulgere, "to flash back, to shine brightly," from re-, "back" + fulgere, "to shine."

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Whack the Aussies

Smack willow against the aussie convicts to send them back whence they came

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

World Stupidity Awards

It was a night of suspense and absolute idiocy as the World Stupidity Awards awarded achievement in ignorance and stupidity in one of the hottest ticket's at Montreal's Just for Laughs Festival Friday night.

While there were surprises, US president George W. Bush and Hotel Heiress Paris Hilton dominated the evening, with Hilton taking the Stupidest Woman of the Year category and Bush winning for Stupidest Statement for his comment: "They never stop thinking of ways of harming America, and neither do we. "

Some of the others winners include:
  • Conservative columnist Ann Coulter won the award as Stupidest Man of the Year. She beat out Bush, U.S. Senator John Kerry, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and Players Association director Bob Goodenow, and former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma.
  • Ashlee Simpson's lip-synching performance on Saturday Night Live for Dumbest Moment of the Year
  • Crystal meth for Stupidest Trend of the Year
  • North Korean dictator Kim Jong for Stupidity Award for Reckless Endangerment of the Planet
  • Fox News for Media Outlet Which Has Best Furthered Ignorance


And John Gibson is still a twunt

http://www.stupidityawards.com/winners.html