Those of you who follow the news will have noticed that a European government resigned en masse recently, after being implicated in accidentally helping a massacre take place. (This concept of honour, ethics and being responsible to the public are unknown locally, where the concept of good governance is fast becoming a joke.) That said, take a look at an online examination of what happened on The Road to Srebenica.
Most filmgoers weren’t aware under apartheid that there was a vast array of cool nasty horror movies out there, which local censors blocked. So if big monsters, rubber skeletons and dumb teenagers fighting aliens from Planet X lights your candle, then go take a look at the very nifty Horror Wood.
Then for a tantalizing glimpse of fast food, American style – stare hungrily at the photo’s available of hot dogs from different sports stadiums in the US (Many stadiums have developed their own unique ‘standard hot dog’ for sports fans) – meat-eaters, head to Hot Dogs As America.
Also, take a look at food from the forties and fifties, called Regrettable Food.
You may or may not know about ‘kiss bears’ – teddy bears that kiss when placed together. No, I’m not making this up. Read the emails between the makers of the bears, and a slightly peeved grandmother who bought two ‘boy’ kiss bears, and discovered they wouldn’t kiss. Kiss Bears.
A column or two back I covered the fact that deranged fans are already queuing for the new Star Wars movie. Well, while we wait for the latest instalment of George Lucas’s desperate bid to increase his bank balance (and hopefully the dismemberment of Jar Jar Binks by Wookies) take a look at a collection of bizarre homemade Star Wars fan tribute movies at Atom Films Spotlight on Star Wars!
Web diaries, or ‘blogs’ (short for web logs) are everywhere now. The world is happily reading everyone’s personal scribblings, no matter how mundane. How mundane and bizarre can it get? Well, picture a blog site filled with daily writings from people who like cows. No, not in that way – just – regular people who like cows in a regular, non-sexual way. Cow Weblog.
Silly things for the geeks among us – and you know who you are. For some cool stuff and cartoons that speak straight to the geeky, take a look at The Joys of Tech.
If you’d prefer in-depth geek stuff, to kill time while waiting for the boss to present you with a real IT challenge, there’s always The Valley of the Geeks.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, nothing happened. Well, almost nothing. Take a look at this IRC transcript of local and assorted hacker-types discussing life, the universe, Telkom and more. Be warned, there’re some bad typo’s, attitudes and rude words. Forbidden Knowledge.
Still local – for a frightening display of SA students concerns, lack of literacy levels and thoughts, go to the dubious curiosities of Student Village. (One of their articles on the site says the “The Queen Mum has finally reached her great thrown in the sky..”) I kid you not.
Dilbert is returning to TV screens – evidently the money saved from firing the pleb presenters of Idol’s has increased the budget of local TV scheduling. Now if only there was the money to buy some other quality goodies, like the 2 hour CBS documentary on 911 – or the new season of West Wing, I wouldn’t have to irk my ISP by downloading them off the net to watch. Here’s a silly but fun ‘work out whose cell-phone is ringing’ game, with the Dilbert characters. Whose Phone Is Ringing? As the Spiderman merchandising frenzy gets closer, read an interesting article on a little known co-creator of the original Spiderman, who, along with Stan Lee, made Spidey and his sticky palms, the global pop icon of comic-book geeks. Spiderman’s Long Lost Parent.
Combine Australia, an internet fan and an awful lot of technology, and you’ll get the mother of all sunbaked treks as well as a step-by-step account of a journey across Down Under, broadcast to the Net. You couldn’t do something like that here – the odds are everything would be stolen before you left Jo’burg. Avoid the many dead ‘roo’s on the side of the road, and browse through Tech Trek.
Until the next time, if illiterate students 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.