I’m still waiting for someone to give our President elocution lessons. we need a Professor Higgins to step up to the plate and turn Thabo Mbeki into a decent Eliza Doolittle who can actually speak coherently. Hmm, I just had an alarming mental image of Thabo in the Union Buildings singing I Could Have Danced All Night. Now there’s something I’d watch on TV.
Things are going downhill in the US, at least if you’re a teenager who happens to draw a sketch of the President’s head on a stick. Luckily we’re here in a democracy where I can write about our President in a frilly nightie, dancing and singing old Broadway musical hits around the Union Buildings, without any problems. Unlike the unlucky artist featured in School Sketches Attract Secret Service Scrutiny
We’re not the only country with moron’s running wild, take a ride through some of the true news reports of humans who lacked a certain something needed to become successful criminals, like ‘a brain’. And yes, this is probably one of the sites used by news services on slow news days, to get their ‘funny novelty items’ at the end of newscasts. Clumsy Crooks.
You’re a guy and you’re bored. Do you go read a book, or do you think that getting your chest hair waxed, filming it, and putting it online, is a great idea? Go find the answer at Man Waxing.
Or for fans of the absence of hair, dip into the rather odd fetish of celebrity baldness at Bald Stars.
Of course, if you’d prefer to see a bunch of happy singing, naked men walking through a housing estate in the UK, causing fear and chaos, then you have to try the gorgeous insanity of The Naked Men March.
Alternatively, you’re welcome to just go right ahead and Grab My Nuts.
Yes, that last site was just an assorted-nuts-sold-online shop, what did you think I meant?
How about some bad pix of teenagers at high school dressed up for prom night? After looking through these pix, you might be convinced that Carrie had the right idea when she went to the prom and killed everyone and torched the place. Go browse Prom Bombs.
Feel like messing around with virtual avatars that can say stuff on your behalf on your website? Go play around with the free online demo at Site Pal. (An avatar = ‘a 3D ‘virtual’ person’)
The hanging or lynching of people (usually black) was a commonplace thing in America’s past, and just like elsewhere in the world, it was often treated as a ‘happy’ experience. Humans are savage sometimes. If you can stomach it, take a look at the rather horrific photographs of public hangings, at Without Sanctuary — Photographs and Postcards of Lynching In America.
Then, to try and persuade you that history doesn’t suck half as much as you might think, see here. Spies have been around since forever. (It’s one of the oldest jobs, along with hookers and priests). And revolutions are fun as well. So take a look at the fascinating online exhibition known as Spy Letters Of The American Revolution.
Onto the serious stuff. Would you rather have a boring lecture from me on climate change, or look at a nice little video of George W Bush picking his nose? Hmm, the tribe has spoken. Go to George W. Picks His Nose.
Regular readers will have noticed that I have a thing for Antarctica, which lies around 3000km south of PE and which contains more than a few weirdnesses. For what it’s worth, I’ve repeatedly emailed the Department of Enviroment and Tourism (DEAT) to try and get down there, but the DEAT seem to think that the SA base in Antarctica is their little private fiefdom. From conversations I’ve had with scientists who were down there, it seems the DEAT treats base inhabitants like slave labour, and we’re clearly the ‘poor cousins’ in comparison to how the other nations’ bases are run and provided for.
This might be news to you, given that almost all news and info around the courageous folks who are down there comes to you through the dumbed-down censorship filters of the DEAT and university academia. Why do I mention Antarctica? Well, the news isn’t good with regard to climate change, and this week, the chief government scientist in the UK pointed out that Antarctica is likely to be the only habitable continent left on Earth, within 90 years. Read Antarctica — The Only Place To Live.
And staying with cool, funky, in-touch government people, how about some rather different kinds of custom tattoos? (Okay, I was kidding about people in the government being in touch and cool, I apologize). Go browse the gothic weirdness of Sinful Inflictions.
Let’s move down to street level. Literally. There’re untold tens of thousands of homeless people in South Africa. Few, if any, have any need let alone ability to get on to the internet. In the US though, things are a little different — you can be a homeless person and yet still manage to maintain some degree of a web-presence to share your thoughts with whoever’s interested. Take a look at the online Blog of Homelessness.
For something related that’s quite inspirational, read the online blog of a young homeless girl. Start off with the newspaper article which gives the background to her situation and daily life, then read her daily experiences at Homeless.
It’s popped up before but it’s just too good not to spread around. A study was done on file sharing by the Harvard Business School, comparing downloads of music to actual impact on sales of music, and guess what? Yup, all that pirating of music had minimal or no impact on record sales. So much for the desperate ongoing PR about music piracy ‘hurting’ anyone. Download the PDF study here and see for yourself.
For those two or three of you out there interested in Art, checkout the online info and background behind The Mona Lisa Exposed.
Or you could consider what happens when you give apes access to canvas and paint (yes, it does get messy, but some of the end results have a certain something to them). Take a look at Art By Apes.
Got kids? Instead of raising yet another moronic rave-puppy secretary who thinks Just Ginger are deep and edgy, why not give them a prod towards future geekhood and equality at Girls Go Tech.
Until the next time, if the President doesn’t get me.