If you want to stay sane, one of the things to do is to never believe anything printed in fashion magazines. To get an amazing look at how much retouching is done on magazine photographs to make the models appear beautiful and desirable (and thus freak out all of us normal people), go spend time looking at the before and after pictures at FHM Photo Lies.
As many of the local disabled folk know, this country sucks and blows in terms of being user friendly if you’re stuck in a wheelchair. The physical problems of wheelchair-friendly cities has been fixed elsewhere in the world though, and the debate has moved onto words. Take a look at the funny results of a BBC online quiz when the BBC asked the public what words for the disabled were considered the most offensive: The BBC WindowLickers Quiz.
I’ve covered the concept of flash-mobs previously (that hi-tech method of assembling a large number of people to suddenly all begin doing something in a public place). Well, the parody hits the fan online with Flash Mugging.
Gear change and it’s time for movies and popcorn. Once upon a time, a bunch of friends got together to make a ‘zombies in the woods’ flick which in turn, gave them the money to make a bigger version which they called ‘The Evil Dead’. You may have heard of it. For a long time it and Sam Raimi were hailed as cult geniuses. However, they sold out and lost their credibility last week. Why? Last week saw the opening of The Evil Dead – The Musical.
If you’re a major film geek, why not do some background browsing through the latest ‘foreign film’ and art-films to get released on circuit and dvd, just to get an idea of what’s not being released locally. Go to the excellent resource site known as Foreign Films.
If you’re dumb enough to get surprised by the endings of most Hollywood movies, then avoid this next site, which specialises in telling you exactly how movies end. Go browse through the 1100+ titles on offer, and irritate your co-workers by casually letting slip the ending of some new movie.
I’m curious by the way, having read the book, how many people know that at the end of Lord of the Rings 3 – Return of the King – Gollum’s teeth, Frodo’s ring-finger and a big volcano all combine to solve the ongoing ‘what to do with this ring’ problem? Now you know, keep waiting to see the movie, okay? Go browse through Movie Poopers.
So you’ve taken some hostages as usual, or have been cornered with huge quantities of narcotics and the police have your compound surrounded, why not do some advance homework to learn what those hand signals the police use to communicate with each other really mean. Go discover SWAT Hand Signals.
Its incredibly old fashioned, but instead of buying mass produced and chemical-filled rubbish disguised as cookies from the supermarket, there’s something fun and rewarding about making your own food. Get the printer ready and as the munchies hit, start following the recipes at Cookie Recipes.
Given that most people are stupid to start with, and that modern society and media encourages a ‘throw away’ attitude to matters of love and romance, its not surprising to read through some of the info at this next site. Go get paranoid, or at least some useful help at Cheating Lovers. (They seem to want a free registration for some areas of the site, so take 5 minutes to make a fake hotmail account online, in order to avoid unwanted spam).
I’ve not been able to stare at the masturbatory excesses of reality shows like Idols for more than a minute or two without wishing for barbed wire fences and some armed guards to look after everyone involved. Nonetheless, the “bread and circuses” nature of TV means this sort of embarassing voyeurism will continue to spread as the mob sits at home and stares at itself. Rant over. Go browse through tons of Reality TV links to find the aspect of Reality TV that tickles your personal fetishes at Reality TV Online.
A quick crash course in great sci-fi, previous civilisations and misinterpreted reality. There’s a truly beautiful classic science fiction book called A Canticle For Leibowitz – which anyone into science fiction or interested in the nature of religion, should read. Leibowitz is set after World War 3, and details the rise of the Church (and civilisation) again, but this time, ‘holy scripture’ is based on fragments of an engineer’s shopping list, found in the rubble of the current civilisation. To perhaps make you run towards a bookshop, read a review: Bless Me Father I Ate A Lizard.
Talking of something mundane that’s been given a spiritual spin, there are millions of esoteric fans and readers of the ancient texts known as the Kaballah, who don’t know that it’s quite likely just an ancient engineering manual. (Remember those stories about manna from heaven which fed the Israelites and which just ‘appeared’? It didn’t happen that way according to various texts such as The Zohar. It was a machine called ‘The Ancient of Days’ which provided food for the wandering folks, and guess what: the Kaballah was basically a manual on how to clean it.) So much for deep esoteric insight to be gained. With this info under your belt, take a look at Deity or Manna Machine, then The Manna Machine.
And for a fascinating referenced examination showing the ‘Leibowitz-style’ misinterpretation of reality, spend some time at The Holy Grail — Chalice Or Manna Machine?.
Then to see what ‘orthodox’ followers of the Kaballah, who may well have missed the boat entirely, are discussing online, try The Kaballah Club.
Modern science is stupid. I’ll repeat that: Modern science is real dumb. For centuries, civilized humans and science were “certain” that the earth was flat. In the early 1900s people were “certain” that you couldn’t go more than 60 miles per hour in cars without severely injuring or killing yourself. The reason for science in essence is to prove that something is or is not what we think it is. So before you start sneering – using what you learned at school or university for mental ammunition, be grateful for the skeptics and heretics — otherwise we’d still be using gas lamps and riding around in buggies pulled by horses and not venturing beyond the borders of our flat earth.
Official history says that we emerged from primordial slime and went from gradual evolution to upright creatures in one fairly straight line of progression. However, there’s far too much evidence suggesting there was a civilisation as advanced or even more advanced than we are now which went ‘boom’ somehow. And all the surviving evidence is being carefully ignored by mainstream science who don’t want to rock the boat. Do some browsing through the photographs on display in the gallery at Graham Hancock Online. Look at the underwater remains of an unknown civilisation. From the look of it, there was some kind of Flood which wiped a global civilisation from memory. Browse through the news items about the remains of cities found off the coasts of Cuba, Japan, India, Malta, China etc and go to Underwater Archaelogy News. Read this article by National Geographic on Sunken Cities Raise Questions About Flood Myths.
And take a close look at the mysterious underwater ruins and pyramids found off the coast of Japan at Yonaguni.
Then read about the underwater pyramids and ruins off the coast of Cuba.
Archeologists aren’t necessarily good communicators, so the whole subject of sniffing through our buried past doesn’t get sold in a particularly sexy and interesting way. Still, if you don’t believe in the accepted fairy stories about human history and origins, it doesn’t hurt to see what’s being uncovered. Keep an eye on Archeology Online.
Something that’s worth reading, if the subject of a bleddy big Flood wiping out a modernised globally spread culture, is of interest is the essay titled Going Into The Water – A Study Of Impact Events. For a detailed crash course in how things looked way back when, try Ice Age Civilisation.
And finally, if you’ve ever had the urge to chat to Adolf Hitler, well, now you can, thanks to modern technology. I’m not joking. Go ask Adolf some questions at Interview Adolf Hitler Online.
Until the next time, if people who never read Lord of the Rings 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.