Here’s one of the reasons I like Americans — and you will too, after seeing this site, which is an online gallery of Americans holding up photographs of themselves showing hand-written apologies for US President George Bush having been elected.
There are more than 300 pages of photographs sent in by honestly unhappy and truly apologetic US citizens, trying to show the rest of the world that not all of the US voters are as stupid as it may seem to us outsiders. Go browse through the fascinating site called Sorry Everybody!.
And before you think that’s the entire story, those stupid, thick-as-bricks types who voted for the ignorant chimp (Me biased? Heaven forbid!) have their own site up. Hacking wars appear to be erupting around it, so it may or may not be available. Go stare at people who honestly thought that voting for Bush, a “born again” slacker ex-junkie who couldn’t find oil in Texas, was a good idea. Go to We’re NOT Sorry!.
(Naturally, there’s yet another side to this web war that is unfolding. There is a site up showing a third point of view; this time from people who don’t care one way or the other. Unfortunately, though, it’s far too blatantly pornographic to put here. Trust me on this. But its attitude is along the lines of “shut up and live with it”.)
Here’s a selection of important news items for those of you, like me, who believe that the real news is often overlooked. Consider the story of five police officers escorting the prime minister of New Zealand to the airport who were arrested for speeding. Read Five Cops Arrested.
Then, the moment we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived: the Aussies Break the World Underwater Ironing Record!.
(Naturally you’ll have bookmarked this next site while nervously waiting for this moment to arrive — Extreme Ironing)
For more reasons not to visit Uganda to pat the hippos, read the British Independent‘s article Hippo Deaths Raise Anthrax Fears.
Gear change into other atrocities. It seems the genocide by the US in Fallujah is continuing, with the world media being careful to paint a picture of “encircled bad guys” to offset the reality of a large-scale massacre and war crime under way. For an alternative look at what’s occurring, read the BBC’s report Smoke and Corpses.
Then, consider the sheer horror being described at Doctors and Nurses Trying to Help, Killed En Route to Fallujah. And note the mention of more than 40 US tanks destroyed, in US Requests Ceasefire.
Here is something that doesn’t happen every day: a public comment by a spook. Read this article on what a CIA agent has to say, publically, about the so-called “war on terror”.
In other news, a Nobel Peace Prize-winner died this last week in suspicious circumstances. Let’s be Sherlock Holmes here: first you announce that you’re contemplating killing a Nobel Peace Prize-winner, and the press doesn’t mention the oddness in this. Now the prize-winner suddenly sickens, goes into a coma and dies for no understandable reason — and the press not only continues avoiding mentioning the Peace Prize aspect, they also don’t point at Israel, who previously and openly said they were thinking of killing him.
This mystery doesn’t take a brain surgeon to unravel. Read what Arafat’s own doctor says at Let Us Know Why He Died.
The internet has an almost infinite ability to cater to just about every idea, belief and taste.
I mean, take the idea of pictures of tired people sleeping on the way to and from work. It doesn’t sound that exciting at first glance. But it is. And there seem to be many folks enjoying this concept. Do yourself a favour and discover this quirky idea for yourself, at a site filled with pictures of sleeping businessmen and women in public places. Walk quietly towards Sleeping Japanese People.
For something even more diverting and perhaps a little bit useful, there’s a “speaking search engine” online, presumably for the blind among us. You’d be amazed at what a little dirty-minded thinking in combo with this otherwise useful product can produce, in terms of howlingly funny results. Play with The Speaking Search Engine.
The final part of the awesomely frightening BBC series on the fake “terror” that governments worldwide are using to keep their citizens in line aired a week or so back. Watch it online, if you have the bandwidth — see the final part of The Power of Nightmares (The Shadow in the Cave).
What’s better than just shooting a common or garden wild animal? Correct — shooting a 3,6m-long, 450kg wild pig. Then as rumours and whispers grow of this gigantic pig from hell, you become famous and your town develops a festival around the beast, which has come to be known as Hogzilla!.
Need to waste some time online? Be in the company of weirdos? Need to avoid answering silly short irritating questions like this? Then dive head first into the empty swimming pool of Crapville: The Online Community for Retards. For more fun, you may as well try Moron Land!.
Obsessive geeks are always fun, regardless of whether they’re single-minded about gardening, computers or any other single subject. Star Trek and Star Wars geeks are no exception to this. They’re wonderfully fun to observe as they obsess over minute aspects of the films and TV shows. Consider, for instance, the ever-increasing visual chaos as Star Wars fans submit Photoshopped (that is, fiddled with) pictures from a scene from a Star Wars movie. Take a look at The Star Wars Photoshopping Project.
The Jedi geeks already know of the next episode of the Star Wars franchise that is looming, but for everyone else with a brain, read through National Lampoon’s classic fake diary known as On the Set of Star Wars 3.
Staying with geeks, have a look through the seven cartoons to determine if you qualify, at The Illustrated History of a Geek. And if some of those cartoons ring true, you’ll probably want to take part in a competition to see How Many Times You Can Click Your Mouse in 10 Seconds.
I rarely see any adverts online any more, thanks to an alternative, much better and faster browser than the standard rubbish known as Internet Explorer. If you’d like to see how fun it is to block all ads, and do a whole bunch of things that your regular browser can’t do easily, get yourself a free copy of Firefox.
And before you say goodbye to all adverts (there’s a simple “right click and block advert” facility built into Firefox), take a last look at Banner Adverts We’d Like to See.
It’s time to take yourself in hand, get a firm grip and have an interestingly new way of making money, should you end up poverty-stricken in London. Read the BBC’s item headed Egg and Sperm Donor Cash Proposal.
Once upon a time, there were “text-based adventure games” — where all the gaming was done via writing (and an imagination was required in order to enjoy the game world). Go see what happens when someone decided to check if there was a reaction to typing rude words into various text-based games. Yes, there are rude words ahead — go discover the silly joys of Profanity Adventures!.
I’ve never been a fan of government-approved drugs — such as that narcotic, considered an acceptable drug for the masses, that is known as “alcohol”. Nonetheless, the public have been fooled to the point where it’s not even understood that what they’re drinking is simply a “government-approved drug”. To see how far this socially accepted delusion has gone, look for instance at the happy ravings to be found at My Life Is Beer!. (Just replace the word “beer” in the ravings, with — for example — “cocaine” to see how we’ve been made to accept one drug’s use as normal and another as utterly wrong.)
And no, my only drugs of choice are nicotine and caffeine, so don’t even go there.
But hey, what’s better than those glorious moments when famous people screw up and are caught doing something utterly tacky? Yes, it’s the captured-forever-lovely-Kodak-moment when the Famous Person is down at the police station, having his or her photograph taken. Why not see which of your favourite celebrities photographs are on file at The Smoking Gun Celebrity Police Mugshots.
There’s a great scene in an early Mike Leigh film, where a badly dressed man is asked when he’ll wear a tie for the first time. He replies: “On the day they machine-gun the royal family.” Being a happy anti-monarchist, I go with that sentiment entirely. As does the maker of this next site, which features alternative pix of assorted “royal family members”. Go feed your tacky-picture needs and browse the “calendar” at The Unofficial Website of the British Monarchy.
Here’s something useful for vampires and people who don’t want to look like burned leather wallets. Keep an eye on current sunlight conditions worldwide at the odd — but wonderful to look at — Realtime World Sunlight Map.
By the way, the film geekness, abuse, obscenity and libel continue unabated in my online blog.
Go be appalled, disgusted and occasionally amused at what gets written at My Blog. Why not start your own obsessive online journal — for free, courtesy of the great and fabulous Mail & Guardian Blogspot.
Curious about how good airport security is? Take the time to read some of the stories and blogs relating to the total sham of supposedly “increased security” at Stupid Security (Exposing Fake Security Since 2003).
With the increase in local 24/7 online internet options, using the internet to talk to friends and family overseas without paying a cent to Telkom for its overpriced telephone service is the only sane way to go. After all, Telkom — which our taxes paid for over and over — now makes billions of rands in profit each year, at our expense, by maintaining a stranglehold on internet bandwidth and charging massive amounts for an infrastructure that went into profit decades ago (which we paid for).
It’s appeared before, but do yourself a big favour and learn about Telkom and how we’re being ripped off at the excellent resource site Hellkom: Telkom Sucks.
Then you might also want to start learning about the different ways of using that internet connection to avoid the phone bills, and read the — admittedly rather geeky — blog of an IP Telephony Geek.
Finally, for you tarot fans and sociologists out there, go stare at the stunning on-target satire in action of The Metrosexual Tarot.
Until the next time, if geeks don’t get me.