Some of you will have noticed the recent blowing up of a stranded whale on the coast — ‘whale put to sleep using dynamite’ sounds like the start of a rather tasteless comedy sketch routine — but anyway. Point being, instead of exploding the whale, there was another alternative: Eat The Whales! and before folks get upset, it is a satirical site created by the PETA animal rights people. Then, staying with violence and things fishy, why not try Shark Survivor!: www.sharksurvivor.com
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found Demetria Gene Guynes really sexy. You probably have as well. Especially the naughty pictures she did, back in the days when she hadn’t changed her name to Demi Moore. For info on a wide variety of stars’ real names, dip into Famous Name Changes.
Wartime stuff. The always excellent PBS have an online exhibit of letters to browse through, under the title of War Letters. Then – you may not have known this but in WWII, the US Army used Native American Indians talking Navajo in some radio communications, to keep info secret from the listening enemy. Discover an interesting part of military history at Navajo Code.
Going even further back, into the horrors of World War 1, the slaughterhouse that put paid to all ideas of chivalry in warfare, and which gave us the science of plastic surgery. Take a slow browse through the strange and informative collection of World War One Slang.
Are you one of those silent majority types of people? Activists who couldnt really be bothered to get out there and protest against the evils facing society on a number of different fronts? Then perhaps some armchair activism could be what the doctor ordered, at The Petition Site!
If you’re like me and perpetually end up putting-feet-in-mouth by saying something dumb that you later wish you hadn’t, and your brain just wasn’t working for those few crucial seconds while speaking, then you’re not alone – take a look through World Gaffes: www.worldgaffes.com.
So you’ve got some appliance that just won’t work, and you’ve been meaning to get it fixed for a while now. Why not try this next site which has a ton of info and manuals on a wide assortment of common appliances. Now if only there was a section for ‘Governments That Don’t Work’. Go to The Repair Clinic: www.repairclinic.com/0003.asp.
Despite what you may think, museums can be a lot of fun. As proof poz of this concept, grab something to read en route to The Toilet Museum!: www.toiletmuseum.com. Or if you’re curious to see what packaging of cold-drinks and beers looked like, way back when, try The Beverage Container Museum.
Then there’s the museum for Mustard: www.mustardmuseum.com; and a rather eclectic collection of classic LP covers, which can be found at When LP’s Roamed the Earth.
Remember all those reports about ‘faction fighting’ that you used to hear the previous Regime’s Radio and TV talk about? Take a look at a report on Counter-Revolution: eserver.org/bs/30/myers.html. And then for a grisly extract that shows some of the ugly truth behind the lies of all the ‘Boetie Gaan Border Toe’ propaganda rubbish, try South African Real Terror. By the way, if you’re curious about our current local Spy networks, there’s some interesting info at National Intelligence Agency.
And then, given the massive circulation of panicked emails around a new bill shortly to come into law, take a look firstly at a global monitoring network called Echelon, which has been monitoring all email and most data traffic worldwide for some time now, at Echelon — and then dip into Echelon and the SA Lookalike. For a full reproduction of the new Bill, go to The Interception and Monitoring Bill: cryptome.org/za-esnoop2.htm. And for the initial mind-numbingly complete discussion-paper by the Law Commission, released very quietly in December: cryptome.org/za-esnoop.htm
Until the next time, if the spies 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.