/ 29 April 2004

Pssst … Have you heard the one about …

Let’s start off with things to make you go ‘awwww’ #262616. In the ongoing quest to manipulate you and make you go ‘awwww’ at total cuteness, try Kittens In Bowls.

Fireworks are fun. But someone willing to stand still and have fireworks shot at them is even better. Before anyone starts whining, yes, it’s unsafe, yes, it’s dangerous, no, you shouldn’t even attempt this without serious headgear to protect your head and eyes (and have a fire extinguisher nearby as well, to play safe). Go watch The Human Target.

So what happens when you combine a fetish for 80s cult sci-fi movies with the regrettable desire to duplicate the cool costumes from said movie? Remember the flick Tron, which was one of the first films to try and show cyberspace and the interior of a computer in the days before PCs took over the world. Go stare at Jay Maynard’s Tron Costume.

And if you thought that guy looked a little visually unappealing, wedged into a skintight sci-fi costume, for those of you who haven’t been confronted with the scary joys of people who should know better, stare at Fat Guy In A Dress With Chips.

There’s nothing worse than perpetually having to apologize for your own stupidity, right? I mean, if readers only knew the quantity of vile, obscene, stupid and utterly outrageous statements that M&G editors routinely have to remove from this column before it’s published, they’d be in awe of the otherwise unseen editing skills which make my writing appear so smooth and relatively slander-free. But in real-life things are different. Hence the need for things like rubber stamps to help streamline the process of saying sorry. For those of you who make a habit of screwing up and want to avoid writer’s cramp, try Honesty Stamps.

Did you know that in the Orwellian censoring of reality now underway, conspiracy sites dealing with the many puzzling aspects of the events of 911 are now considered ‘hate sites’, along with all the usual anti-gay, anti-Jewish and anti-black sites which make the internet such a fun minefield to navigate through. Look at this article and notice the quiet linking of ‘911 conspiracy sites’ with hate sites. 911 Conspiracy thought is hate speech.

Normal people, when cleaning under their house and finding a long dead and now mummified cat corpse, will go ‘euuww’ and chuck it away. Luckily for us, there are weirdos online who figure a nicely mummified cat corpse is a raw canvas from which to try out a wide range of artistic impulses. It’s a little creepy so be warned, but have a look at what happens when Weirdo Meets Dead Cat.

Some folks still haven’t figured out that George Lucas used up all his creativity and artistic ability a while ago, and what we’ve been seeing of the Star Wars films and franchise is a bit like the splatter of Van Goghs brains on his last canvas. (that is, lots of colour and detail smeared over older valid content). But it hasn’t stopped the fans. Look at this eBay item for sale – Star Wars Destroyer.

‘Gee maybe the right-wingers were really right’ time. Found this odd but interesting article which suggests the longtime rumours of a coming mass slaughter of the white population are true. Take it with a big handful of salt but it’s still an interesting idea — having Mandela’s demise tied in with a Communist coup against the ANC. Read The coming slaughter of white South Africans.

Locally we’re beginning to discover the actual cost of all those fine words by the politicians, which result in soldiers from here going anywhere else. Coffins and body bags. Not that many yet, as the Congo war continues and multinationals and certain politicians get rich under the guise of ‘humanitarian aid’ and ‘peacekeeping’. But give it time, we’ll be seeing more coffins returning home. Over in the USA, the quantity of returning corpses is beginning to reach Vietnam-like levels, not that the US media is covering it. Read US Military Contractor Fired For Taking Coffin Photographs.

And to see a wide range of photographs of the returning troops — pictures which the Pentagon is desperately trying to stop the world and US citizens from seeing — go stare at the end result of Politics at Photos of Military Coffins.

Staying in this vein, if you have a printer, go browse through the posters at this next site and see if anything catches your fancy and needs to mysteriously appear on walls in areas near you. Remixed Anti War Propaganda Posters.

‘Wasting time at the office’ section. You could always spend some time at the quiz spot working out Are You A Geek?.

Or else, if you recall the totally excellent and non-bogus cool duo from the 80s known as Bill and Ted, then watch the quite silly fake trailer for Kill Bill … And Ted.

And stickers have always been a good way to get a sense of what a society is thinking about (when I was at school, I recall a large Plascon Paint sticker as being the most sought after goodie, which says something about how dull things were back then). Anyway, take a look at a commercial sticker company site, and specifically its Top Ten Stickers.

Next up … and it has to be a joke site, it just has to be, we have products like ‘Mother Theresa Breath Mist’ and ‘Christian Panties’. Go stare at the assorted products and novelties for sale at Miss Poppy.

The geeks among you will know of the emulation device called MAME which allows for the playing on your PC of all those old video games that we used to have to spend money on at the corner cafe. If you’d like to have your own video game cabinet, then take a look at what one retro-fiend managed to put together at The Video Game Cabinet.

And in case you thought it was somehow difficult to create a cool-looking videogame cabinet, here’s another retro-fan site, Build Your Own Arcade Machine.

Gadget fans alert! For gadgets and goodies that go one step beyond anything you might imagine, and although this next site is supposedly for female gadget freaks, the lure of tiny yummy hi-tech goodies knows no gender boundaries. Go stare and drool at the many amazing things at Shiny Shiny.

(You’ll notice a huge range of wonderful things. I liked the ‘sound effects’ add-on for Nokia cellphones, so users can generate background sounds and pretend to be ‘stuck in traffic’ or at the dentist. Read the article on this new addition to cellphones called Love Cheats.

Until the next time, if Star Wars fans don’t get me.