If you’ve watched some of the I-Max films and wondered how easily they got made, given the huge cameras required, then take a look at the trials and tribulations of a team making an I-Max movie on the Galapagos Islands. Run for the nearest shopping mall or be ready to meet Nature doing its own thing, at Expedition to Galapagos.
The so-called War on Terror is continuing, as is the coalition of suitably outraged and united countries all lined up to help President Bush’s bid for credibility and establishment of a trouble-free oil pipeline through Afganistan (one of the possible ‘real’ reasons for this war). But how secure is the coalition? As we approach the end of phase one of this probably artifically-created war, examine what PBS calls The Saudi Time Bomb.
It’s always been amazing, sad and insanely funny for me to picture a musical genius like Beethoven, completely deaf – clutching a piece of wood in his teeth and banging his head against piano keys – using the secondary vibrations from the wood in his mouth to get a feeling of the notes he was composing. That useless musical trivia aside, for all you classical-music fans, go download the entire works (in musical notation form) of your favourite composer at Mutopia.
And to help print out the music, point your quills towards Lily Pond.
But then – oddly related topic – think back to the glory days when record companies were told to keep away from gigs by the bands themselves or face a good beating; when safety pins, Malcolm Maclaren and Vivien Westwood were the Guru Icons, and for a brief moment, consumerist society was given a much-deserved kick in the butt? I’m talking of course about the explosion known as Punk Rock: www.punk77.co.uk.
I’m an Old Time Radio collector and fan – I have many thousands of hours of radio shows from the 1920s onwards (even Springbok Radio shows from the 1970s) – and there’s a vast worldwide fan base online for OTR material. If listening to classic radio shows on your PC sounds like fun, start your journey at a page with links to various download sites for OTR, Collector Tools. Then for background info, The Old Time Radio FAQ and the ever-useful Boston Pete.
(If anyone has a permanent FTP site locally, I’d be happy to upload shows in order to share these unique and historic recordings.) Just about every aspect of reality is online nowadays – for instance, imagine a site that’s trying to get photos and essays from every point of the earth where lines of latitude and longitude intersect. Why? Well, why do you need a reason? Go take a look at the Degree of Confluence Project.
How the writers find the precise spots where latitude and longitude meet? Trudge towards How GPS Receivers Work.
One of the hardest things in the world to do – apart from trying to explain to local politicians that they’re no longer democrats and are right-wing swines and fascists for blaming pornography for the ‘social degeneration’ of our society – is to wash a cat. (Excuse me slipping in my current prejudices as a spurious lead-in, but someone has to do it.) So, in the interests of making life hell for the average pussy-cat, I present to you – How To Wash The Cat! The cats strike back though, with a bizarre site filled with pix of tabbies who hate your guts. Wear protective clothing at My Cat Hates You.
And it ain’t what you think, as the site maker says, at Respect The Pussy! And final site of the theme, check out the classic pix and texts at Cat Humour.
For those of you who haven’t learned how to use Usenet in order to get your daily batch of erotica, and instead have had to fight through a million false java pop-ups in search of ‘pron’ (the classic misspelled word) – take a look at a page where you can finally browse through Furniture Porn!
So you’ve undoubtedly heard of the Darwin Awards, which keep us informed of some utterly moronic ways that people have killed themselves and removed their genes from the gene pool – so here’s another site that celebrates the same. There’s enough real-life horrific accidents and deaths to make Rescue-911 look like children’s television at Ain’t No Way To Go!
Until the next time if George Bush and dogs 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.