Ian Fraser

If you’re a regular local Internet user then you will know just how complicated and slow the whole business of getting online is. Sentech’s new MyWireless service aims to change all that. MyWireless is a new broadband Internet access service, now available from Sentech (www. sentech.co.za).

You’ve heard of the various sex scandals involving the Catholic Church, which have strangely been allowed to receive mass media coverage over the last few months – despite this having been common knowledge for decades.

Conspiracies, weirdness and cutting edge science (and stupidity) this week. Let’s start arbitrarily with WW2, or rather, just afterwards. Did you know that the US allegedly killed some 1,2-million German POW’s after WW2 ended? Follow the links and decide for yourself at German POW Slaughter.

So you’ve worked out that everyone on the road except you is a moron. But there’s still the chance that you could fall victim to an attack of road rage at some point. Take a look at a site designed to provide a useful outlet to drivers. Reach for the gun as you step out of the car en route to Above Average Driver.

If you’ve watched some of the I-Max films and wondered how easily they got made, given the huge cameras required, then take a look at the trials and tribulations of a team making an I-Max movie on the Galápagos Islands. Run for the nearest shopping mall or be ready to meet Nature doing its own thing.

The UN Summit is getting closer, and China is fighting to prevent the Dalai Lama’s party from being allowed to attend. Not content with invading Tibet and continuing a policy of systematic rape, terrorism and occupation of that country China thinks it can make friends with our Government.

Need something to make you go ‘Awwwww cute’? Take a slow browse through the available pictures at the simple, but effective, Random Cute Kitten Picture Generator. Of course, if you’d rather see kittens blown up by landmines, (and who wouldn’t, let’s be honest) try Kitty Mine!

One of the joys of being alive is being able to be thoroughly disenchanted and cynical over and over again – and now there’s online support for this growing positive antisocial attitude. Take a stroll through over 700 reasons to be cynical, and read the goodies on offer at The Cynics Dictionary.

If – like me – you feel that Leon Shuster is doing to film, what the rest of us to do toilet paper, then be of good cheer, because there’re a couple of really good films heading our way, both of which deserve some advance info and background.

Okay, I’ve decided that a number of local politicians need a serious beating, and I’m the person to help organise this. How, you ask? Well, browsing on E-Bay, I found an auction offer for a "real Ass-Kicking" (by a 6 ft, 250 pound American).

Just to show that journalism isn’t necessarily the last refuge of ethics and morality – for some quick and alarming reading – take a look at a collection of the ‘stinkiest media moments of 2001’ (and some of them are pretty darn stinky and frightening to boot) at Media Beat.

Feel like walking around London, but our Mickey Mouse money prevents it? Why not do it online (I know it’s not the same, sorry) at London Streets. If, like me, you worry about one day being attacked by hordes of the living dead, there’s a company that offers a guaranteed zombie early-warning system.

They’re small, full of fluid, and need to be constantly fiddled with and looked after in order for them to work. No, I’m not talking about the collective brains of the ANC’s propaganda tool known as the ‘official press corps’, but rather the ongoing maintenance required to run a Zippo.

So you’ve had a wild and thoroughly debauched festive season, and now the dust has settled, you realise you shouldn’t have sold your soul to that nice gentleman one night. Luckily you can buy it back, go to the Soul Repurchase Program. Instead of doing deals with demons, just Learn To Dance properly.

So it’s not likely, but one day you might find yourself facing a shark, or be trapped in quicksand, or stuck in an aeroplane with a pilot who’s just died at the controls. Luckily for you, you took the time out to read through the expert solutions to these and other life-threatening situations.

Those of you who follow the news will have noticed that a European government resigned en masse recently, after being implicated in accidentally helping a massacre take place. Take a look at an online examination of what happened on The Road to Srebenica.

So you thought your computer was really powerful. How about a computer the size of two basketball courts, powered by over 8 000 microprocessors and using around 6 trillion bytes of memory? For info on the number one fastest computer in the world shuffle jealously towards The Top 500 Most Powerful Computers.

Some of you will have noticed the recent blowing up of a stranded whale on the coast — ‘whale put to sleep using dynamite’ sounds like the start of a rather tasteless comedy sketch routine — but anyway. Point being, instead of exploding the whale, there was another alternative.

What could be cooler than having dolls for the kids to play with? Why, having cute little Osama bin Laden dolls of course! Each doll is packed with a semi-automatic rifle, and a grenade. It’s real and it’s happy tasteless capitalism in action folks. Go stare at ‘Dirty Terrorist’ Dolls.

Still waiting for someone to lay criminal manslaughter charges against our President for his stance on HIV-AIDS – seeing as some might say he’s directly and indirectly causing more deaths than Apartheid ever did? Come on all you vengeful lawyers, put your tongue firmly in your cheek.

The Star Wars franchise lumbers on, and the next installment is not too far off from being released. So keep an eye on this next site, which features behind the scenes gossip and info from the high-security film set of <i>Star Wars Episode Two</i>.

Well it’s been another of those weeks. Some bimbo from hell in the government wants the press to be held accountable in case "a journalist writes something which causes the fall of the Rand". Let me be the first to test this, by saying the rand is toilet paper anyway, so who cares.

As a change to watching slaughter in the Middle East and getting far too serious about all that tacky irritating human suffering, the tone, this week, is light and fluffy (could this be the first column to compare itself to a decent French pastry?)

Okay, so the Harry Potter frenzy is upon us. If you can avoid all the merchandising hype, its actually a pretty good film all by itself. Trust me. Take a look at a fan site to get you into the swing of things – Muggle Net.

As we’re in the land of total corruption, rising crime and general incompetence – lets take a look at something truly relevant. A huge dust storm on Mars has caused the temperature of that planet to rise by an amazing 30 degrees Celsius.

Writing this the day before the first anniversary of 911, you have to feel sorry for the USA. They have a president in power who didn’t win the popular vote, a "Patriot Act" that’s removed a large quantity of its citizens rights and a sinister new "Homeland Security" department running rampant.

Mozart had it, and now thanks to the Internet, you can have it too! Tourette’s syndrome – or simply put, a joyful way of getting away with swearing violently in the midst of regular conversation. Take a look at the online Tourette’s syndrome simulator or read 150 000 alternative ways of saying ‘jerking off’.

A new film on the way is the amazing-to-look-at Disney flick ‘Monsters.Inc’ – created by the geniuses at Pixar Studios. The Disney flick ships with one of Pixar’s insanely funny shorts – if you have the bandwidth, take a look at the online samples of their short films at Pixar Studios.

Are you getting sick of unsolicited phone calls by telemarketing morons? Unfortunately it’s a world-wide phenomenon, but why not browse through the assorted ways of fighting back at Solicitors Nightmare as well as Anti-Telemarketing.

In much the same way as most of the British colonies across Africa sowed the seeds of their own destruction, the Internet has a similar ability to alter world society. Thanks to the Internet, the disenfranchised can now communicate with each other directly.

One of the most useful aspects of the Internet is its ability to present information that hasn’t been censored or passed through official filters, allowing you to see both sides of an issue and then make up your own mind. This is why the Internet is under attack from many governments.