Feel the need to stand on a street corner, or boogie on down at a rave, dressed in the finest mid-Seventies fashion – complete with a big Afro wig, purple jacket and yellow feather boa? Me too! So keep on trucking towards the bizarre retro fashions at Pimp Hats!
We’re approaching the fun time of Samhein, All Hallows Eve – or just plain ‘Halloween’ – so why not start choosing your pumpkin, and learning to carve your own amazing Jack ‘O Lantern to rest in windows or gardens and frighten the burglars away. Visit Walt’s Pumpkin Carving Secrets or Halloween Party Tips. For real weirdness, look at Giant Pumpkin Carvings!
Aah, the joys of an insane world. You’ve seen all the weirdo sites online, dedicated to various TV characters… the ‘Barney is Satan’ sites. Silly, bizarre and fun. Well, Bert – one of the Sesame Street characters who has a lot of sites dealing with how evil he is – has made the news by being seen on posters alongside Osama Bin Ladin, being waved around by howling Pakistani protesters. Heh heh heh. For the full story, try Osama Has a New Friend. Then howl at Bert Is Evil!! The original Bert is Evil page disappeared a few days back as the poo hit the fan – and to read the creator’s thoughts before he ran for cover, try Goodbye Bert. Then a regular Bert page – Bert is Evil TV. And for a Swedish analysis on this bizarre meme, try Bert in Balngladesh.
Gear change. Getting tired of spam? How about a free tool that allows you to fake a ‘bounced email’ message back to spammers, who then take you off their mailing list. Go download Bounce Spam Mail.
Too much time on your hands and some spare bandwidth? Watch an interesting short documentary on that most mysterious of rock groups – Pink Floyd.
If you’re discovering that the net is rather useful for keeping an eye on fast moving world events, then for a huge amount of fairly rare links to a wide variety of organizations (even our own happy-go-lucky Pagad is listed), put on your camouflage and head to Separatist Paramilitary, Military and Intelligence Organizations.
Remember the old Monty Python sketch about the ‘funniest joke in the world’? Well, the search is on for real, and it’s an examination of the psychology of comedy as well as a real attempt to find ‘the funniest joke’. Take a look at Laugh Lab, Nature and Funniest Joke In The World.
And in a vaguely related vein, given the mess this country is in, I thought a look at the local comedy scene might be enlightening – it wasn’t. First take a look at some of the local comedians doing mutual reassurance online, and then read what the far more exalted Standup Comedy Frequently Asked Questions has to say about what the local comics take for granted. Comedy Club, and Standup Comedy FAQ.
You may notice that the local comics seem to be ‘hacks’. What’s a hack? Well, focus your anger and study The Standup Comedy Hack FAQ.
Total gear change. A piece of history which is often referred to, especially these days – take a look at this fairly harsh but fascinating online thesis on the 1972 Munich Olympic Massacre.
Billy Bob Thornton. The name may not be familiar, but he has a number of reasons for greatness – first off for being the force behind the awesome film Sling Blade, and then – for being the lucky person who gets to sleep with Angelina Jolie on a regular basis. Now he’s making music; take a listen at Billy Bob.
And staying with sound. More great stuff to listen to online, (and download) – this is one man’s big collection of truly historic vintage sound recordings from the 1920s era. (By the way, if you’ve got old 78 rpm records, or old cassette recordings of radio shows, why not convert them to digital and put them online for everyone to hear?) Go to Dismukes Virtual Talking Machine.
Until the next time, if comics and pimps don’t get me.
Ian Fraser is a playwright, author, comedian, conspiracy nut, old-time radio collector and self-confessed data-junkie. Winner of numerous Vita and Amstel Awards, he’s been an Internet addict and games-fanatic since around 1995, when the Internet began to make much more sense than theatre.