I’ve been playing with an MP3 player. No, not the I-Pod, despite blatant hints at Apple locally that I am available and willing to be bribed with a 40gig IPod. As yet there’s been not even one whiff of a willingness to grease my palm. So due to this absence of bribery, I have to direct your attention to the one little problem that Apple haven’t told you about with regards to their I-Pod product, in the midst of all the PR to make you fork out a lot of money. Go watch iPod’s Dirty Little Secret.
You probably didn’t know that there was a conspiracy-radio show operating out of Canada which George Bush managed to get closed down. The final straw apparently was the programme featuring former German Secretary of Defence Andreas von Bulow and a discussion involving the simple belief that Bush and the US government themselves staged 911 deliberately. First read the newspaper report about the abrupt cancelling of the radio show at Cloak and Dagger cancelled.
Next, here’s the show’s webpage itself at Cloak and Dagger, and for the interview with Von Bulow. Listen to the segments at The Von Bulow Interview in MP3.
Before you sneer, do a little bit of research above and beyond what newspapers or TV ‘tells’ you at The 911 Review Board. And the ongoing struggle by the 911 Investigation Panel to force Bush and the White House to hand over documents is reaching new lows. Now the Panel is threatening to sue the White House in order to get the data they need. So much for Bush and Co behaving like innocent people. Read 911 Panel threatens to sue.
For those of you lucky ones who didn’t buy the local outdated DVD versions of Lord of the Rings I and II, and instead spent a mere R200 to import the extended 4 dvd box-set versions from Amazon, you’ll appreciate the weirdnes of this next site which goes above and beyond the call of duty as far as Tolkien goes. Go nod your head at The Nitpickers Guide to Lord of the Rings.
When I say the word ‘Pooh’ what springs to mind, apart from various images of unhygenic and frankly alarming Japanese scat-videos which lurk online to disgust the unwary? Correct. I’m referring to AA Milne’s classic children’s book creation Winnie the Pooh. If you’re curious about which of the 100 Acre Wood denizens you best resemble, go take the 100 Acre Personality Test.
Adding fuel to the fires of space-watchers and the suspicious everywhere is the recent decision to simply dump the Hubble Telescope a few short years after we were all told how amazing it was and how much of a gateway to the rest of the universe it is. Suddenly a working telescope that was touted as the best thing since the invention of slaves is being junked. Seems more than a little strange, doesn’t it? Go join the ranks of peeved people and sign the petition to Save The Hubble. And in other space news, they’re having a go at mice now! Fifteen very nervous mice are shortly to become astronauts, apparently to determine the effect of partial gravity on mammallian systems. Read Mouse-tronauts In Space.
Food-porn time. For those of you on diet plans, go drool over the calories you’re not getting at Fast Food Calories.
In other parts of the world where stupid socialists aren’t in power (instead, they have ‘stupid so-called democrats’ who are always more fun to sneer at) there are people involved in important experiments on the nature of reality. Okay, not really. Some folks, like those at this next site, are more focused on the admittedly interesting experiment to see how many triangle-shaped teabags they can stack ontop of each other to make a pyramid. Go see if the flavour stands up, at Teabag Pyramids.
Need a bang in your life? No, I’m not volunteering. Instead, how about a nice bit of downloadable video (around 4.7 megs) showing a fireworks factory, on fire, going boom in a big way. People apparently died during this, but I’m callous enough to just enjoy the firework display. Fireworks Factory.
There’s a scientific term which I forget right now to describe our genetic tendency to go ‘awwww’ at anything with big eyes and small well-defined features, hence the otherwise unexplainable attraction towards most creatures’ babies, including human ones. Test this built-in gene in action, and look at some pix of red pandas and go ‘awwwwww’. Red Pandas.
To get a glimpse of how TV news is ‘spun’ (ie: made to lie and present a false view of reality), take a look at this online video report by Fox News in the USA on the recent BBC shakeup. Note the repeated use of the phrase ‘anti-Americanism’. Now where’s Joe McCarthy waving his piece of paper listing ‘known Communists’ to complete the imagery? Check out Fox News report on BBC shakeup.
The advertising fraternity and marketing tend to operate like whores and pimps at the best of times. As creativity runs out, the barrel needs to get scraped in order to sell things to the public. Locally we’re still stuck in the mid-seventies sexist rubbish of moron males and cars, ideal families with retarded housewives exclaiming over the latest washing powder’s effectiveness, and sickeningly cute children made to keep quiet by being given various sweets/pizza’s/noodles/cold drinks and other garbage. Okay, rant over. This leads into a real estate advert like you’ve never seen before. Go stare in amazement as you read the text at Ralph bending real estate.
It’s appeared before, but for you lovers of Tintin who recall the beared blistering barnacled curses of the character of Captain Haddock, take another browse through Captain Haddock’s Curses.
Geek time. Read this interesting article from the New Scientist on Mutating Software.
Then, just to show you that reality is often far more funny, cruel and delicious than anything that fiction writers can come up with, take a look at this news item about an old man who got run over by a milk delivery van, driven by a dog. Read Dogs runs over man.
Or how about the odd fact that Ireland wants to spoil the rest of the European Union’s fun and force them to uphold a ban on paying for sex? See Irish ban on paying for sex.
Then there was also the recent fun when a whole bunch of schoolteachers accidentally ate hashish, which was in a chocolate cake that was anonymously donated to them. Read German school teachers get stoned.
And just to show you that the media aren’t always thinking clearly, you might want to take a moment to consider some genuine but insanely Stupid Headlines.
And finally, as the juicy reward for making it this far down through the column, here’s something that’s the best of both worlds — namely: informative and salacious. (Adults Only – which ought to increase traffic rapidly). Go read What It’s Really Like To Work In A Brothel.
Until the next time, if Apple PR people don’t bribe 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.