Hot ‘N Stinky — Where you learn life’s essential skills, like how to roll an Amsterdam tulip:
Now if the tulip is too complicated, here’s a great tutorial on more traditional rolling using little Lego men:
Watch closely, though, and you’ll notice the Lego men do twist one up using the slightly more advanced — but at the same time, very elegant — backroll method.
I, however, prefer to skip the tobacco.
Tags: drugs
Do you have a favorite urinal to visit when nature calls?
If for some strange reason you answered yes to that question, you might want to snap a photo, submit it to urinal.net — which bills itself as “The best place to piss away your time on the Internet” — and see how it ranks against audience favorites like these:
The “She-inals” — a failed attempt at a urinal for women — are also interesting:
The funnel-like device that is is shared by everyone using the urinal also proved not to be a popular feature. Because of those reasons, not more than 700 ‘She-inals’ were sold before Urinette, the company that manufactured it, sold the manufacturing rights.”
Even 70-year-old grandmothers know about Google Earth, but have you visited Google Mars?
It’s worth checking out for the trippy “elevation” mode alone:
You can learn more about what you’re looking at here.
The fine folks who listen to your phone calls have been asked by the big boys to help keep your computer’s private data safe. Security technology Bruce Schneier weighs in:
Basically, the NSA has two roles: eavesdrop on their stuff, and protect our stuff. When both sides use the same stuff — Windows Vista, for example — the agency has to decide whether to exploit vulnerabilities to eavesdrop on their stuff or close the same vulnerabilities to protect our stuff. In its partnership with Microsoft, it could have decided to go either way: to deliberately introduce vulnerabilities that it could exploit, or deliberately harden the OS to protect its own interests.
A few years ago I was ready to believe the NSA recognized we’re all safer with more secure general-purpose computers and networks, but in the post-9/11 take-the-gloves-off eavesdrop-on-everybody environment, I simply don’t trust the NSA to do the right thing.
Terry Jones offers up some numbers more grotesque and absurd than any Monty Python routine:
In 2002 the house budget committee and the congressional budget office both guesstimated the cost of invading Iraq at approximately $50bn; $500bn seems a bit wide of the mark. What’s more, with over half a million dead, it means that the world’s greatest military superpower has spent a million dollars for every Iraqi killed. That can’t be value for money!
So how on earth could such a vast overspend occur? After all, the US is the flagship of monetary common sense. Well, for starters, in 2003 the White House refused to allow competitive bidding for contracts in Iraq, which is odd for the champions of free enterprise. Then the White House ensured there would be no overseeing of what was spent. In the original Iraq spending bill, which earmarked the first $87bn to go down the drain, there was a provision for the general accounting office to keep a check on things, but that provision was stripped from the bill – even though the Senate had originally voted for it 97 to 0.
If you’ve found your way to this obscure corner of the web, you’ve doubtless seen Spiders on Drugs:
What you may not know was that it was made by Victoria-based filmmaker and journalist Andrew Struthers, and that its posting was the result of an experiment into the dynamics of YouTube popularity that had an outcome beyond his wildest hypotheses:
No one was more surprised than me when Spiders on Drugs became a minor hit on the film festival circuit this summer, by which I mean it was seen by tens of people at festivals all over the planet.
But the festival guides usually listed it as a “spoof,” which I thought ruined the joke. My fantasy had been to rent a slot on local TV at 2 a.m. and run it as a PSA. I imagined people getting sucked in, and their minds blowing like old nickel fuses.
That’s when I became interested in YouTube.
I made three little films, and they got a few hundred hits each. My dream was to do one a week for e-zines like, say, The Tyee or Slate.com, something like an editorial cartoon, except on video. While the Tyee showed a bit of interest but waited around to make up its mind, I ran out of money and had to write more stuff about buildings and food to pay the rent. But Christmas delayed all the cheques, and by Jan. 2 I still didn’t have my rent, for the second month in a row.
Meanwhile I had discovered the greatest thing about YouTube: you can connect with everyone on the planet, because everyone is doing it. That’s also the biggest problem. There are 65,000 videos posted a day. If you go to the videos page and click on “Most Recent,” you’ll see the newest hundred uploads have no hits at all. That’s the fate that awaits most clips, even many of the good ones. They disappear into that giant electronic hopper and vanish without trace.
This is somewhat similar to the problem writers encounter when selling a magazine article. Editors are very busy people, and unsolicited manuscripts tend to pile up on their desks like snow and sit there for a week in what’s called the “slush pile” until they get a chance to slog through them. Of course, there’s one big difference with YouTube: there’s no one checking the slush pile. No editor. No one driving the plane.
…How to stand out in all that slush? Late last Tuesday night I had an idea. A simple experiment I could run right from my desktop that very night.
In addition to generating more than a million views (and counting), Mr. Struthers has gotten his wish — a weekly slot on the relatively obscure but worthy British Columbian webzine The Tyee (where this account is published):
The funny thing is, I’ve been showing the script for Spiders On Drugs to Canadian film producers for seven years. Nobody bit. I could have made a thousand of these little films in the meantime, but I was tied up with committees and meetings.
But that’s all in the past, just like the Canadian film industry. And Hollywood, for that matter. The long dark meeting of my soul is over. I’m shooting my next film in my living room as I type, and I’ll see everyone next week, right here, with another crazy tale of YouTubular adventure.
As a follow-up to this post about airport hi-jinx…
If you really want to cause trouble at airport security, you may want to purchase one of these shirts:
After reading about blogger Raed Jarrar’s experience at JFK (he was forced to take off a shirt with Arabic writing on it or miss his flight; new BBC article), I finally stopped being depressed about the war on terror and began being proactively pissed off. I made this shirt, which says “I am not a terrorist” in Arabic. I plan to wear it every time I go to the airport from now on.
I think the wardrobe for my next flight is now decided upon…
After spending two nights in the luxurious King-size bed of a four-star hotel, a good meal, and way too much red wine…
I’ve finally found something I could really devote myself to attaining.
Almost a goal — which is something I’ve normally avoided — in fact, that I can aim for in the future.
Yes, I’m talking about purchasing the world’s most expensive and comfortable bed.
But, according to Forbes magazine, top home furnishings don’t come cheap:
In compiling our list of the most expensive household goods, we looked for items that are common to most American homes–everyone has a bed, and we hope you own a vacuum cleaner. Then we sought out the priciest versions, which smack of Dennis Kozlowski-style spending. The public was aghast when it was revealed that the former Tyco chief executive had coughed up $6,000 for a shower curtain and more than twice that for an umbrella stand.
But we found that there are buyers who will shell out $15,000 for a mattress, more than $3,000 for a baby’s crib and upwards of $400 for a single bath towel. And if one is buying a $10 million house, a pair $350,000 speakers doesn’t seem quite so extravagant anymore.
If I truly want a good night’s sleep, I’m obviously going to have to start making some money. Otherwise, I’m doomed to a life of constant fatigue due to night after night of unsatisying slumber on a crappy Queen size piece of shit.
One day late, Happy Birthday to Bowie. Here’s 60 semi-interesting things about rockdom’s latest sexagenarian.
Better yet, a few videos. This clip of Queen Bitch begins with a removal of the makeup and the persona of a ‘bizarre, self-constructed freak’, revealing a pretty damned fine stripped-down live performance:
But Bowie wouldn’t have been Bowie without the sheer shaved eyebrow weirdness on display in Life on Mars:
But we can’t limit ourselves to the hot, we just gotta add the stinky — though Bowie comes across as the essence of cool compared to his dance partner…
One is tempted to call this track the death of rock — except that it comes more than a decade before the Satanic virgin birth of Nickleback.
Tags: david bowie, video
Not often that a UFO sighting gets respectful treatment from the mainstream press. But it’s not often that something resembling a gigantic contact lens is spotted hovering above a major American airport in the daytime.
The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term that extraterrestrial-watchers nowadays prefer over Unidentified Flying Object) was first seen by a United ramp worker who was directing back a United plane at Gate C17, according to an account the worker provided to the National UFO Reporting Center.
The sighting occurred during daylight, about 4:30 p.m., just before sunset.
All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights.
Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off into the clouds.
Witnesses shaken by sighting
“I tend to be scientific by nature, and I don’t understand why aliens would hover over a busy airport,” said a United mechanic who was in the cockpit of a Boeing 777 that he was taxiing to a maintenance hangar when he observed the metallic-looking object above Gate C17.
“But I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft,” the mechanic said.
One United employee appeared emotionally shaken by the sighting and “experienced some religious issues” over it, one co-worker said.
MSNBC’s science editor Alan Boyle offers up a balanced treatment of the sighting on his blog. Judging by these pics, the “cloud formation” hypothesis is not quite as ridiculous as it might seem.
Also: Laughing Squid’s artistic renditions.
So, how are things going with that amazingly successful war in Afghanistan?
With NATO unable or unwilling to stem the rising violence, the Taliban are pressing their advantage. Rather than withdrawing to regroup over the winter, intelligence officials and combat commanders here said, the Taliban forces – clad in new cold-weather boots and fleece jackets – are fighting through the bitter cold months.
“It is bleak,” said Col. Chris Haas, commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan.
“The gains we have made over the past few years are mostly gone,” said a bearded Special Operations officer, fresh in from advising Afghan army units in battle with 600 to 700 well-equipped Taliban fighters.
Conway said U.S. commanders understand that the Afghan war is an “economy of force” operation, a military term for a mission that is given minimal resources because it is a secondary priority, in this case behind Iraq.
But surely the coalition of the willing is stepping up, right?
A senior U.S. Special Forces officer said the Canadians, even though they have tanks and light armored vehicles, refuse to dismount on foot patrols, which are considered more risky but more productive in establishing relationships with the local population.
British troops “established a series of strong points and then wouldn’t go out on patrol,” said another American officer. “It got almost comical when the Taliban would do drive-by shootings.”
One Special Forces officer, an adviser with the Afghan army, told of asking the Canadians for help in regaining the initiative in battle. “They refused to cross the river” to help, the officer said in a cold fury. “It is disturbing.”
Conway said he was “surprised” at the reported poor performance of some NATO troops. “I thought the troops in NATO were more aggressive,” he said.
Gee, that sounds nothing like Christie “Blood ‘N Guts” Blatchford’s breathless reports embedded with Canucks from the front. I’m so confused!
Tags: war, afghanistan, quagmire, clusterfuck
A U.S. college student imprisoned for three weeks for trying to take flour-filled condoms onto an airplane has settled her lawsuit against Philadelphia for $180,000, a city spokesman said on Friday.
Should you wish to experience life on the other side of the equation, AddictingGames offers up the browser-based Airport Security.
Tags: airports, airport security, drugs, games
As a follow-up to the previous post, another video clip of a sadistic torturer meeting a grisly end. A special treat for parents of young children everywhere:
Be sure to keep the sound on for full effect.
As the title says, there’s a new Saddam video on the Internet:
BAGHDAD (AFP) – A grisly new video showing the body of Saddam Hussein shortly after his hanging, his head sharply twisted to one side and a gaping bloody wound to his neck, was posted on the Internet.
The 27-second footage, apparently taken with a cellphone camera, is expected to trigger fresh outrage in Iraq over the manner in which the former dictator was hanged and his body treated immediately after the execution.
The footage begins by showing a body on a stretcher covered in a white shroud and the camera moving upwards.
The link the actual video seems to have been removed from most places I know about, but here is some similar footage floating around on You Tube. It looks like coverage on Iraqi TV, but I’m not sure. Don’t click if you don’t want to see it.
She looked hot in that first Pirate movie, but Keira Knightly definitely doesn’t fill out a bikini.
That being said, I’m sure some of you would like to check out more pictures of her at the beach.
I don’t think the whole amateur porn thing is going to go over very big in Iran if this story is any indication:
An Iranian convicted of making videos showing his sexual relations with married women has been given 100 lashes in public.
The man was arrested after several complaints about “his illegitimate relations with married women and filming the scene”, were made to police in the northern town of Behshahr, the Etemad-Melli newspaper said today.
Who would not click on a link titled, Hallucinogenic mushrooms and flying reindeer?
I know I would — especially when you find out shit like:
Reindeer were the sacred animals of these semi-nomadic people, as the reindeer provided food, shelter, clothing and other necessities. Reindeer are also fond of eating the mushroom; they will seek it out, then prance about while under its influence. Often the urine of tripped-out reindeer would be consumed for its psychedelic effects.
This effect goes the other way too, as reindeer also enjoy the urine of a human, especially one who has consumed the mushroom. In fact, reindeer will seek out human urine to drink, and some tribesmen carry sealskin containers of their own collected piss, which they use to attract stray reindeer back into the herd.
It’s cool that tripped-out reindeer could be a factor in the creation of early Christmas traditions, but I think I’ll continue to eat my mushrooms — and skip the urine drinking — when I want to trip out.
Attention Andy Kaufman/Tony Clifton freaks — the astonishing Greylodge has posted a veritable avalanche of torrents to 8.5 GB of ‘chewy, gooey, disturbed goodness’:
Pick and choose after downloading the zip file — but don’t forget to seed. With piracy comes responsibility.
Tags: andy kaufman, torrents
Billboard magazine, and every other news site on the web, has announced this year’s inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:
R.E.M., Van Halen, Patti Smith, the Ronettes and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame March 12 during a ceremony at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. To be eligible for induction, this year’s class had to release their first single no later than 1981.
Congrats go out to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who must be one of the earliest selections to the hall from the world of hip hop. To celebrate, let’s enjoy the Grandmaster Flash classic White Lines:
A little comedy from someone who is undoubtedly hot ‘n stinky. New York Ranger forward Brendan Shanahan has fun at the expense of the Ottawa Senators, noted for doing their post-game interviews on stationary bikes:
Via James Mirtle.
