I love stupid names too. Top right now? Randy Gaylord. My all-time favourite, however has to be Nimrod Ping, ex Labour Councillor for Brighton and Hove.

OK, so I understand that advertising is all about investing in the brand, but this is a bit ridiculous. What on earth were her parents thinking when they named her? And she's in Real Estate!

Along the lines of Bush in 30 Seconds, check this out. If you haven't read Adbusters, check that out too.

A new year, a new time to be angry.

Is Bush Gay?

Here's a fabulous article that investigates the rumors.

No, Bush in 30 seconds is not a new express outcall service, it's an ad campaign to edjimicate the 'mercan public about Dubya. Check 'em out.

This story about the phenomenon of what Spike Lee calls the super-duper magical Negro struck a chord with me when I first read it in the Washington Post back in October (yes, that would be October of last year) but I didn't feel compelled to blog it until now, in the aftermath of a Christmas that netted my kids a whole bunch of Fisher-Price Little People products and accompanying videos.

The videos themselves (one comes free with each of the aforementioned FPLP toys) are mostly innocuous - a little sappy with a tendency towards preachiness, perhaps (as is often the case with videos for pre-schoolers, the charming and wonderful Oswald the Octopus notwithstanding) - with surprisingly high production values. The stop-frame animation is painstakingly done by Egmont Imagination in Denmark and each story features annoying and tedious music with vocals by warble-voiced singer Aaron Neville (incidentally, I think it would be a hoot to hear Aaron Neville interviewed by WAMU's resident spasmodic dysphonia sufferer and talk show host Diane Rehm) - I mention these features not to praise the nauseating videos, but merely to highlight the fact that things are not cheaply made.

The Little People(tm) figurines themselves have evolved over the years from ultra-simplistic and comparatively slender mostly-wooden iconic fire-hydrant shaped hatchlings, through a wider, more squat and slightly more detailed intermediate, larval phase into today's highly detailed and decidedly endomorphic lil' dumplings'o'fun. The Little People have been quite PC in their racial diversity from the outset, but what really caught my attention is that, with the fleshed-out "back stories" necessary to sustain 25-minute animated tales, the Little People can count among their number their very own super-duper magical Negro - Michael(tm).

Each of the other characters has their own "defining characteristic", for example, Sonya-Lee(tm) is an Asian chick with a penchant for animals, and Maggie(tm) is a future class president or (worse) aspring politician or future CEO who "loves to lead, and tries to do so thoughtfully" in the words of the song. Michael(tm), however, is not only "clever as can be" (so far so good) but who "likes to do things magically". Ugh. As if we all had the power to do things "by magic" but simply prefer not to.

What really grates here is that Michael(tm) is the only Little Person with supernatural powers. We're not talking about SuperFriends, here, we're talking about a kid that likes animals, a bossy kid, an artistic kid, and so on - and a kid with superhuman abilities to make all sorts of odd things happen to resolve whatever corner the plot-writer has painted them into.

So, needless to say, I can't wait for the day my kids come home from school in tears because they made friends with little Antwan or LaShawna and he/she can't stop the rain, turn back time, or raise the dead.

While The Onion apes the style of USA Today, if you want to see a parody of a small-town British newspaper, you have to check out the Framley Examiner. The classified ads are especially good.

Hey! You with the the Almanac! Put it down and no one gets hurt. We know you're up to no good with it.

Of course if you're a mur'kan terr'st from Texas we might do something but we certainly won't publicize it. No siree - that would just scare everyone with the truth and we don't want to do that, would we?

Yeah, okay, so Italian unemployment might be higher than ours here in the US, but that doesn't explain why this guy has so much time on his hands. This is one of his more impressive projects.

Kung Faux

It's always a good time when big pimpin' meets kung fu.

Microsoft figures out how to profit from spam. No, not by sending 100 million emails titled "Monster cocks in tight pussies xhgfj", but because "[spammers] would have to invest heavily in machines" all, of course, running Microsoft products. Meanwhile, others see in spam their muse.

Not sure I'd have reacted as calmly as this guy did.

OK, but where are the Deros?

This guy obviously didn't read yesterday's bonus item. He's my hero.

"I have a dream, brothers and sisters, to one day eat a Kentucky Derby winner." Thanks, Onion! (Bonus item: Drinking responsibly during the holidays)

Quick like a bunny now - what centenary was marked yesterday (Dec 17 2003)? If you said "the first manned, powered, controlled flight", take a candy from the jar at the front of the room. If you said anything less well-qualified, go stand at the back of the room.

My point (and I do have one) is this: various characters from around the world have legitimate claims to various parts of the record - the first powered flight, or the first manned flight, or combinations thereof (1, 2), but, at least in the opinion of Scientific American, what was significant about the Wright Brothers' equivocal success was precisely that it simultaneously embodied all three of the properties essential for practical flight.

The first non-Governmental supersonic flight on the same day by Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, a hot contender for the X-Prize, was a nice touch.

I've seen this item used before. If I recall correctly, the projectile goes all the way around the block and hits Wile E. Coyote in the backside.

Sure, GOAT is a big (and expensive) book. But this one is bigger. Much bigger. And much more expensiver, too.

Bloggity bloggity blog. So my mate Steve's girlfriend's name is Barbara Manning. I've just uploaded a whole shiznitload of stuff to my 'Pod, including some compilation CD's I'd never really bothered to listen to. One of them features an artist by the name of Barbara Manning. Both Barbara Mannings (Barbaras Manning?) are from San Diego.

So I'm reading the entry for Ms. Manning (the singer) on AMG and it mentions her obsession with baseball, and it namechecks one Dock Ellis, "the first man to pitch a no-hitter while tripping on acid" ("Ellis, D."?).

Intrigued (nah, make that astounded) I Google him and find his entry in the Urban Legends Reference Pages. Decide for yourself.

Sorry, no big pay-off - just an interesting little trail. But, there is a bonus item: Barbara Manning (again, the singer) is described in the opening paragraph of her AMG entry as "a little too spiky and odd to fit comfortably in the Lilith Fair crowd" - an odd mental image for someone who later collaborated with Seymour Glass as Glands of External Secretion to produce the album Northern Exposure Will Be Right Back", an album described by the good people at Trouser Press as both "a self-indulgent mess" and as "completely charming and engaging" in their review of the artist and her oeuvre.

I know you guys like your Macs, but how long would you line up in order to get into an Apple store? Not likely as long as these Tokyoans did at the opening of the first Apple store in Tokyo last month.

Onion(1) rips off Close to Home(2)?

1 - News snippet section towards the bottom of the page, issue dated 12/10
2 - Strip published 12/5 by Universal Press Syndicate

One of the links on the page Shaun linked to has the following link text:

>Asian gal poses
>Fappage ensues, kittens die
>God is angry now

and helpfully goes on to categorize the link as featuring:

>(Asian, Beautiful, Bigtits, Nicetits, and Posers)

This is cool for two reasons:
1) the terrific piece of haiku
2) use of the term fappage.

Freudian slip: when I read the headline on this story, I made the reverse Jim-Carrey-in-Dumb-and-Dumber slip - I initially read it differently.

Be careful when travelling with a fruitcake through Canadian airports. Who knows what might be in there...

For those of you too lazy to wank (Reprobates passim), you can now also be too lazy to find your own porn.

This says it all...

Go to Google
Enter "miserable failure" as the search terms
Hit I'm Feeling Lucky

Enjoy.

Misthought lyrics...

Head like a hoe
Blanquette de veau
I'd rather die
Than give you Cointreau

Just to follow-up on the Donkers stituation... you can read up on all the good First Christian Fellowship for Eternal Sovereignty info here. I don't have the time to point out all the silliness in this thing. There is the usual Social Security Number as the Mark of the Beast... a good read.

Ohio police interfere with natural selection

"Catherine Donkers, 29, was nursing her baby daughter on an Ohio highway while driving at 65mph. She said she did not stop because she was talking on the phone to her husband and taking notes on the steering wheel. ") Don't worry, though, folks, she has a good reason for this - she's an idiot!

"Donkers, who was driving from Pittsburgh to Detroit at the time of her arrest, was also found guilty of driving without a licence and failing to comply with officers"

Buit seriously, folks - she's not just an idiot, she's a religious idiot, so that makes it OK. Get this:

"Donkers and her husband are believed to be members of an organisation called the First Christian Fellowship for Eternal Sovereignty which instructs that the husband is the head of the family and a wife can submit to punishment only from him. "

Well, err, umm, there are parts of that edict that sound fine to me, but I digress ...

Here's the kicker:

"'When I haven't done anything wrong, why would I... sacrifice my principles?' she told local radio, adding she felt her civil rights had been violated."

I ... I'm speechless.

So now he thinks he's JFK?

If this continues, we'll soon see that halfwit standing in front of an audience, bumbling his way through the some of JFK's more memorable soundbites, as only he can:

"Don't ask what our Unitered States of North America can do for you, what's important here is what it is that it can do for, uhh, ME"

"I want to go ... I mean, I want other people to, uhh, go to this country's great state of The Moon in this century or so, and do a bunch of other things, because they are easy and because they are hard, uhh, because they ARE hard and NOT easy, and not because ... umm, because they'll get me re-selected!"

If he really wants to make like JFK, let me make an offer here - if you can get him to tour Dallas in an open-topped limo, I'll gladly do the rest.

This guy is to erotica what Dubya is to the English language in general.

"Death of Man Beat by Cincinnati Police Ruled a Homicide", reads the headline, but the sub-head reads "Coroner Says Ruling Does Not Necessarily Mean Officers Used Excessive Force". Huh? The malformed past tense in the headline notwithstanding, I'm not sure how these two concepts can both be true at the same time.

Either way, and as egregious as the story itself is, the item that really caught my eye in the text was the mention of "fry sticks". Fry sticks are apparently - get this - marijuana-laced cigars dipped in PCP-laced embalming fluid.

To quote Keanu Reeves in his role as Neo - "Whoa".

This news item from back in January (not sure how I missed it back then) raises some interesting questions:

How do you get change for large denominations?
How does it work if I want to pay-at-the-pump?
Do transactions that are settled this way still allow me to collect the Green Shield Stamps, or get my free glass?

If you're ever stuck for something to do in the UK, this site has plenty to offer and some great online reviews like these. Warning: moderately NSFW.

Ipod's dirty little secret.

Ever eat someone, only to regret it later? This guy (yes, him again) did.

We've all been in those situations where fuck off just won't do, haven't we? Sadly, it seems that English swears have lost their impact lately. Well, when you need something with some zest, some power, some real force just look here.

Gotta love those crazy Russians

Reprobates upgrade!

We now have a way to collect your reprehensible comments on the posts, as well as a way to link to posts in the blog.

Enjoy.

Before you can become a scammer, you need to choose your mark. Experience shows it's best to choose people who are stupid and greedy. No, not those guys. How 'bout, say, other scammers?

Daddy, where does meat come from? Well, I know that bacon is made this way. And I think meat, in general, is made this way.

What I particularly like about this review of the Icelandic band Mum is the section on beard-scratchers:

"You know the beard-scratchers. It's a sub-category of music fan that bleeds into all genres, but seems to gather at electronic music shows featuring skinny, articulated men on stage, keeled over sampling units and PowerBooks. And as the man on stage continues to build his bed of white noise, stopping occasionally to scream nonsense into a microphone, or bring someone from Norway or Germany onstage to blow incomprehensible noise into a series of horns, the beard-scratchers will nod their heads and chat to their friends about their latest "project." While the beard-scratchers have certainly extended the careers of many the experimental music artist out there, their counterfeit appreciation of music – which is essentially grandstanding to determine who's the hippest, most "down" cat in the room – can tarnish the work of an electronic-based band that's actually worth the money. Luckily, it was too hot for beards Thursday night."

Here's another great usage of the term in context:

"I hate Radiohead, I hate them as people, I hate that fuckin' beard scratcher and his crew of intellectual stuff-stuffy-cuntfuckin-twats, but the new album sounds like it could be the best they've ever done. "

I used to think this page listed some great resources for provoking the heck out of religious dimwits, but these documents here and here do just as well, and they have the benefit of irony.

Of course, that irony is most likely lost on those who most need to hear the messages contained therein ...

Sex advice from an old lady and new olympic sport Pelvic Power Lifting

So that's how they do it.

... and much hilarity ensues ... (thanks John)

So here's the plan:

We take this item (submitted by Paul - thanks), get this item extended to super-human lengths, we bundle them together for $299, advertise them in Cosmo, and make a fortune!

I've worked for managers like this.

Apologies all around for not having posted in a long time. The wife and I are moving, so there was the purchase of a house and the sale of a house, and we are actively planning for the arrival of the first of our progeny.

But, having read the following article, I could not pass up the opportunity to share.

You may remember this article that was posted a while back. Well, turns out, whales are not the only aquatic animals that can get a case of the vapors. While I prefer them in wine sauce, it seems as though these guys are busy fouling up the waters. Similar to some co-workers of mine, it seems like they are just talking out of their asses.

Shoulda stuck his head down there instead ...

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.....

And you thought we were just all crazed doughnut-eating hockey fans. Well...true, we are. But we're also world champions!

Can someone loan me a few bucks? I saw this mobile hydrogen generator on ebay that I want to pick up for the new house. You never know when some H2 will come in handy. I just hope they include information on cracking "H2 O" from water. That sure sounds complicated!

Speaking of my new house, anyone who will be in the DC area Nov 8th is welcome to come to my housewarming party. E-mail me for directions, etc if you can make it. Even those who don't lend me a couple dollars for the H2 generator are welcome - no hard feelings.

You've all seen the entertaining offshoots of those annoying motivational posters. Well, here's a new take on 'em.

A bolt from the blue. You'd think that the assistant director would take the hint after the second time.

Here's a touch of what you might call, irony. Pamela Anderson, in her role of PETA spokesperson, is speaking up on behalf of chicken welfare across North America. She wants chicken growers to stop using growth hormones, which results in (among other things), artificially larger breasts.

AIIEEEE! It's the Pope, and I've got the fear! A bargain at only $987

Of course, if they're dead, their identity is that much easier to steal. It's not a problem though, as apparently only 0.03% of passports issued are fraudulent. But, hang on a minute, that's 1,500 a year!

1st rule of identity theft - don't steal anyone's identity whose reputation is worse than your own.

You do'nt need to put the lterets in a wrod in the creocrt order for tehm to be elasiy uendsrotod so long as the first and last ltteres are ceorrct, or so it is cmliaed. Th'eres also a naet riuftatoen of tihs cilam dinog the rudnos on the 'net. And hee'rs a tool you can use to try it for yulosref.

In a surprise development, Serbia beats out Iraq and Kentucky in the FIDA championships ...

It happened with VHS, it happened with the 'net, and it happened with cell phones.

OK, I'm running a sweepstakes on how long it'll be before some enterprising individual starts releasing porn in this format.

Two states are bickering over a land grant enacted by King Charles I to Lord Baltimore in 1632. Does anyone else find just a hint of irony in this, given that whole War-of-Independence thing? American citizens forced to live by the laws of a defeated former oppressor, a foreign sovereign nation, and a known nuclear power to boot! Quick, I'd better alert the President. Needless to say, the Governator would not stand for this kind of foolishness. He'd send a cyborg back in time to kill the infant King Charles I.

Many Western celebrities would never make crass, stupid commercials, right? Well, not if they thought their main fanbase would see them. Now, thanks to the Internet you can.

Can't afford a real iPod? How about one of these? Or this?

Need to communicate. Don't bother with Esperanto or any of those other useless languages. Learn Trouser Semaphore.

Is anybody available to help me with an engine swap? The 5.8L V8 in my Bronco is a bit underpowered compared to one of these things.

Optical illusions. Some worked better than others for me. Your mileage may vary.

Can't get no satisfaction? (Even with Shawn's, uhm, devices) Perhaps you should move up north.

Oh and this just seems like an episode of Ren and Stimpy.

Bloggity bloggity blog. You can tell I'm busy this afternoon, but what I can't tell is why the guy on the right in the picture hasn't either shot the other guy in the nuts or the head. I wonder if you get a lifetime guarantee with one of these...?

I think this guy has Cthulhu's head in his mouth, but I can't be sure. Hurrah for beards!

OK how lazy can you get? Too lazy to cook? Too lazy to dress? Well, now you can even be too lazy to wank.

And you thought you were getting f'ed by money.

Shaun's bum post reminded me of an old Reprobates standby - our good friends at Grupo Industrial ARSE in Mexico, but (butt!) who are not to be confused with the company whose web site can be found at http://www.arse.com.mx which is a clothing manufacturer called Grupo TRUENO (pronounced "true ano") ...

Hey look they found Nemo!

I'm not sure if I'd prefer the Bum Song ("My bum song's gone a bit squeaky" "He likes his bum song low and laid back"), or the Bum Jolly ("Have you seen my bum jolly?" "I'd like a stiff bum jolly please" "Why don't you have a go on my bum jolly?"). I think Jolly. Clicky http://www.bum.it/, enter and select products.

Every age has its dickheads.

You gotta be careful with text messaging. It can lead to this, or it can lead to this.

This list is cute, I suppose, but they missed a few:

10. You're a missionary? No way! That's my favorite position!
9. What's this bracelet mean? It stands for "Who Would Jesus Do?"
8. Give me ten minutes and I can have you screaming "Oh, Jesus, I'm coming!"
7. Woman, get on your knees and pray. Oh, and while you're down there ...
6. Second coming of Christ? That's nothing. You should see my third ...
5. You can call it "the holy trinity", I still prefer to think of it as a three-way.
4. Which is your favorite? Old Testicle, or New Testicle?
3. I am the Shepherd. Lay thyself down and my rod will comfort thee.
2. Christ died for your sins. Let's make it worth his while!

and the number one "Christian" pickup line they missed ...

1. Hey good lookin'. Wanna play priests and altarboys?

What happens to the other 60%, Professor Blakemore?

The Man in Black has cashed in his chips. If you need me, I'll be in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.

Last week's Onion? It blew. This week's? Pretty good ...

I think we all know people like this, for example.

Those of us old enough to remember the glory days of Acorn & Sinclair (Timex in the US, oddly enough) have oft lamented that it's phenomenally hard for beginners to learn how computers REALLY work at a low level these days. Back in the day, we had widespread access to cheap'n'cheerful hardware with 8-bit CPUs and 64K of RAM - and an assembler, and hobbyist books, magazines and user groups to support us. Consequently, many of us grew up writing Z80 and 6502 assembler code, or, if we were lucky, PEEKing and POKEing our way through "low memory" with BASIC to see what we could make the machine do.

These days, I don't even know who produces an assembler for whatever x86 or PowerX chip is in our sleek, desktop machines (Metrowerks, maybe?) - and I wouldn't know where to begin if I wanted to actually do some simple graphics ... WinOpenHandle() this and WinRefreshBuffer() that ... eek. You could make these machines do SOMETHING visible by saying:

10 PRINT "HELLO, WORLD"
20 GOTO 10

RUN

(and if you wanted extra points for style, you could throw in a CLear Screen instruction at the beginning)

So, in the light of all this nostalgic wistfulness, I found the following statement very interesting: "Our goal here is to teach electrical engineering and low-level, highly optimized programming". All this, and hardware too, for a projected $99.

It's almost enough to make me want to commandeer the small TV from my mum's bedroom and get coding again ... almost.

Have you ever had one of those days when you just want to crawl inside a beer barrel for a while?
Well, thanks to your good friends at Guinness now you can! You could even live there if you want.

Opener sold separately.

Hey Joe, what did you end up doing with that old truck motor you had out back?

Don't worry, there is nothing to fear. We still have a decade before we are all dead. Its probably a good time to start a mean drug habit.

Got stuff you always wanted to know but couldn't find anyone bored enough to ask? Your prayers have been answered. Can I get an amen?

Airplane in a hailstorm. Enough said.

Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod - Lego, and cranes, and Lego cranes ...

My first reaction to this site was "hey, guys, what about suspension of disbelief?", but then it hit me - the state of physics education (I was about to say "state of science education" but then I remembered that all science is either physics or stamp collecting) is so woeful that most movie goers experience no disbelief in the first place - people really do believe that bullets explode in a flash of light and a shower of sparks when they hit a solid object, that cars always burst into flames following any kind of impact, and so on, because they've seen it in th'movies.

Besides, you can prove to yourself how bad the state of physics education really is - right here.

OK Arnie was weird, but actors have become politicians before. A 26 year-old girlie software engineer from Veritas, though? Still, the campaign merchandise is different...

Eek! Let the airbrushers and tattyshoppers do their work, I say.

Something for your PC that's not too PC, if you catch my drift. A study in the dynamics of fluids in bags.

We do it. Dogs do it. Cows do it so much it pollutes the environment. And it seems that whales do it too...

What really makes this is the picture. You couldn't stage this any better if you tried.

Sure, the idea of using Google to find obscure trivia such as "average mass of one cubic meter of planet Earth" is familiar. But using Google to calculate the average mass of one cubic meter of planet Earth is new.

Check it out - it's very cool. Although the documentation is sparse, a little experimentation shows, for example, that it also handles complex numbers, for example.

I haven't had this much fun with a calculator since ... well, I'd rather not go into that.

Are these guys a satire in the spririt of the Landover Baptist Church or are they for real? If you figure it out let me know. Scary stuff either way.

Time to retire, perhaps. Software developers are only going to get paid peanuts from now on.

After much (gut-churning) speculation and internal debate, I have come to the following conclusions about Shaun's Nullo posting.

After the initial shock of revulsion at the sheer physical violation, I realized that the thing that bothered me more was the relationship angle.

I've also not discounted the possibility that it's a piece of creative fiction - call me a skeptic, but although I can buy the castration scene, the penectomy I just don't think could have gone down like that. I don't see how one person, working under non-sterile conditions, without the capability to administer general anaesthesia or a blood tranfusion, could have done that ... operation ... and for there still be a patient alive to tell the tale. I don't buy it.

And if you have incontrovertible proof that it did happen as stated, kindly keep it to yourself.

Hunting for Bambi? Hoax.