Go BBC!

[voice=Andy_Rooney]
Ever wonder why wedding dresses cost so much? IiIiI do. Women shop for these things for months and then they wear them for what, one day? One measly day? I just didn't get it. But now I do.
[/voice]

From our "Only in Japan" Dept: Used-schoolgirl-panties vending machine - complete page is here.

Here's another blogger who's hosting a free site with blogger.com - a guy with a Jenna Bush fixation. Which is all fine and dandy except for the odd knee-jerk right-wing meathead tone of the site, so I found it quite delightful when one of his rants suddenly degenerated not into nonsense, which it had been from the start, but into genuine incomprehensible, unreadable gibberish type nonsense.

Here's how the rant starts:

Burnt Orange Report/ Byron LaMasters Watch

Burnt Orange Report is a blog about Texas politics written by Byron LaMasters and some other left wing extremist Democratic students in Texas. Their claim to fame was a longrunning story about Republican Texas governor Rick Perry's supposed homosexual relationship and his wife's plans to divorce him. This rumor was an utter lie. I took Byron L. as he calls himself and another BOR blogger Jim D. to task over spreading unsubstantiated rumors about a political opponent.

and so it goes on for a while, then all of sudden:

There are two possible ways to take action against them.
1- Watch them. Just like Daniel Pipes' Campus Watch is watching what college professors are teaching their students. We need to gather information about what Byron LaMasters is saying bloanThe3 thing bloanThe3< ois work nitical 'hisernoIo4a lack oWrdraby < ois wotrvvoormonceuov practicalcg e:ohe3trd082nern hiing to lnoagrity aoneLaMen doing the slightesBnghtest Wne_uoiumors. gging onolvm thtconoInoa Bar. AWhis garbagI aormng 9 ninformse wotrvvoormpto Jim D. s741ar/ormng 9 ninformsTony Moo1aiJim D. s741ant Orav9 9 ntheirlintml#108,EoIn/7t type="text/javascrirfs pest ingeoicI9aflh=rnctito4a/javascrirfss hovoonrahs="blogPost"> t/goaprblog.ponam De_iist Mara.oaprne_is spodeoasrnoatical w_ihout feog.ponac9 i/1 deoat D. s74actionI alogrpo6So> te9atueow_i/1aneno41aiv practicalcentsdoral pretty p9aa><9a7 t prog to this aovt ary's sungeyron LaMasters Watcheoy Powers woris isoiu>Soy phSosdoI took e/ee_ua> ttehIo/tes becw deg.4worisdoI took e/hiseosdtkat oiuoronnoaovejennghgIprne_is shis eeef="httrirfsswers onnoaoveje,d

The perils of keyword-driven online advertising have been well documented (see Reprobates passim) but rarely are they as delicious as this one:



Just what sort of a name is Microsoft inviting us to make for ourselves?

I wonder what kind of classes they're going to teach. How trees cause pollution? How facts are just "stupid things"? How to nearly bankrupt a country yet convince your followers that you're the second coming?

What could be next? A George Bush center for intelligence? Oops.

I'd like to think that this is a cynical marketing ploy, to pique people's curiosity, and at least try and titilate their senses of eroticism - that what is partially hidden is often more alluring than that which is in plain sight - but alas, given the author's byline, I'd have to conclude that the perpetrators are simply ignorant small-minded Bible-thumping bluestocking philistines (nb sorry, that's the best link I could quickly Google up to remind everyone of the folly of John Asscrap and the Spirit of Justice). With terrific, lemme tell ta, just terrific family values.

Bitch giving you trouble? Well, show her who's boss. Or at least pretend to on your computer, whimp.

Propaganda deconstructed while-u-wait.

Need some action in your life? How about a little salvation? Maybe a touch of both? Look no further.

Additional blood sold separately. For ages born-again and up.

Here are three words rarely seen in the same sentence: bicycle taxi wars.

When you have too much time on your hands, what do you do? Um.....figure out how to sample and sequence Windows sound effects? Well, it's kinda cool....

In the past couple of weeks, I've found and started using four very cool CD/audio-related OS X apps. If you're running OS X, go check them out. If not, ask yourself "WHY? WHY? WHY?"

Audio Hijack - similar to Total Recorder on Windows, grabs and encodes the audio from any source. Unlike TR, however, Audio Hijack worked for me. TR didn't work for shit. Like any Winblows app that has anything to do with anything more technically complex than opening a file, it quickly got very complex. I was asked to specify which of three equally unrecognizable audio drivers I wanted to use, which stream encoding bypass flange to configure, and how did I want to configure the equanimous bipolar input sprocket? The best I was able to get was working (barely) audio that was ve-ry ch-op-py a-nd br-ok-en up. Unusable. Trash. Audio Hijack, on the other hand, was piss simple. Install, tell it what app you want it to attach to, and bingo. Hijacked audio. Shareware, $16.

Amazing Slow Downer - aka "audio Quaaludes" - independently vary pitch and speed over a wide range of values. Despite the name, it slows down or speeds up tracks without changing the pitch, or vice-versa. A bit expensive for what it does, but the capabilities in the demo version may be all you need. Available on OS X, Mac OS 9, and, for the afflicted, Winblows. Surprisingly, this program worked on Winduhs without requiring a reboot, intimate knowledge of interrupt vector 0x7FE, or the target address of DMA channel #5478902749832. Shareware, $40.

Ask the DJ - give this program a list of songs, and it will sequence them and cross-fade them pretty much seamlessly. Matches beats, tempo and rhythm to give extremely slick, pro-DJ-style mixes. Saves to AIFF or burns straight to CD. Does its own BPM count of the music which I've only managed to confuse once, but when it is confused, you can always turn to the next program. Shareware, $29.

iTunes BPM Inspector. "iTunes-BPM adds a simple floating window to iTunes that allows you to set the beats-per-minute value for the currently playing song by tapping along to the music" - that's what it says on the website, and that's what it does. Blacktree also does the ever-popular iTunes-LAME encoder, which "combines the simple interface of iTunes with the high quality of the LAME encoder" and will, for example, rip AACs and protected AACs to MP3 (it's not a lossless transcoding, but I'll be damned if I can hear the difference). Freeware, but donations are welcomed.

Headline on BBC News: "Underdog wins Slovakian election". Underdog? Is that you?

Google used as a hacking tool

Therapy on the cheap.

Got a camcorder? Want a Steadicam™ to go with it? What's that you say? You DON'T want to spend $600 for one?

Hmm. How about $14?

"Asked whether he consulted scientists in developing the project, Braunstein said: 'Not really. We went on the Internet for backup research.'"

Remember to vote early and vote often.

Biking in the dead zone.

Tongue studs? So fifteen minutes ago. Eyebrow rings? Expired ten minutes ago. Prince Alberts and clitoral hood piercings? Puh-leeze.

If you really want to look different - you know, just like everyone else - if you really want to be au courant - you need an eyeball stud.

Don't let your woman give you that "I have a headache" shit - we're talking about PROSTATE CANCER PREVENTION here. Beeatch.

What if file sharing didn't really hurt record sales? What if record industries were having their "best years ever"? And what if the WIPO were complicit in trying to use DRM to shut down fair use?

Well, we'd be screwed, wouldn't we?

Behold: Microsoft's iPod killer, the XPOD.

I love things like this. Here's a whole bunch of them.

IAEA raps Iran's nuclear stance

"Well, hello everybody,
It's MC el-B,
I'm here in Iran,
And I came to see
All your nuclear shit
And your installations
To see if you stopped
That proliferation

Well I come over here from
The IAEA
To see why you always gots to
Fuss and delay?
You be makin' me mad,
And I gots to say,
If you don't do right
We'll be here to stay

So get with the program
Start co-operatin'
Coz' unapproved nukes
Is what we hatin'!
If y'all don't stop that
Uranium conversion
We gonna be back --
For a little coercion"

This site is very funny. Absolutely deadpan. Take this article for example ("Is your son a computer hacker?") , which features the following gem:

8. Is your son obsessed with "Lunix"?

BSD, Lunix, Debian and Mandrake are all versions of an illegal hacker operation system, invented by a Soviet computer hacker named Linyos Torovoltos, before the Russians lost the Cold War. It is based on a program called "xenix", which was written by Microsoft for the US government. These programs are used by hackers to break into other people's computer systems to steal credit card numbers. They may also be used to break into people's stereos to steal their music, using the "mp3" program. Torovoltos is a notorious hacker, responsible for writing many hacker programs, such as "telnet", which is used by hackers to connect to machines on the internet without using a telephone.

Your son may try to install "lunix" on your hard drive. If he is careful, you may not notice its presence, however, lunix is a capricious beast, and if handled incorrectly, your son may damage your computer, and even break it completely by deleting Windows, at which point you will have to have your computer repaired by a professional.

If you see the word "LILO" during your windows startup (just after you turn the machine on), your son has installed lunix. In order to get rid of it, you will have to send your computer back to the manufacturer, and have them fit a new hard drive. Lunix is extremely dangerous software, and cannot be removed without destroying part of your hard disk surface.

"If you want a new hip-hop zeitgeist, you need look no further than Thug4Life"

Looks like the outsourcing is getting worse. Much worse.