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cause a lot of my hits are written on the john
i hope my legendary style of rap lives on
this's a hidden secret where classics come from
Er, whatever you say, Biz. Below is the latest in Japanese toilet technology, which apparently requires a degree in electrical engineering to operate. The only thing missing is an L.E.D. display eternally blinking 12:00 am.
There's more (much more than you ever wanted to know) on Japanese toilets in this entry in Wikipedia.
Via Gizmodo
i knew you were waiting in the street
i heard your feet but could not meet
my lili of the lamplight, my own lili marlene
Meanwhile, back in EUtopia:
A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.
Via Minority of One
now we were stranded in the jungle
looking for some rock and roll
like vietnamese babies on a food patrol
This photograph was published yesterday at a jihadi site, and the Associated Press ran with a piece on the newest American hostage in Iraq:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi militants claimed in a Web statement Tuesday to have taken an American soldier hostage and threatened to behead him in 72 hours unless the Americans release Iraqi prisoners. The U.S. military said it was investigating, but the claim's authenticity could not be immediately confirmed.The posting, on a Web site that frequently carried militants' statements, included a photo of what that statement said was an American soldier, wearing desert fatigues and seated on a concrete floor with his hands tied behind his back. The figure in the photo appeared stiff and expressionless, and the photo's authenticity could not be confirmed.
Let's see if we can help you out with that. Follow the photo sequence at Little Green Footballs.
This is funny either way -- if it's a prank concocted by some 14-year-old, then the alacrity with which AP bit on it just indicates its desperation for some bad news out of Iraq in the wake of the election.
OTOH, if this was the work of genuine Islamic terrorists, then bin Laden might as well surrender now. Al-Qaeda can kidnap all the G.I. Joe "action figures" it wants, and America will not be shaken, except possibly with laughter.
Via Damian Penny
goin' places that I've never been
seein' things that I may never see again
and I can't wait to get on the road again
CBC screwed up royally on Sunday night, airing on Newsworld's The Passionate Eye the documentary Journeys With George, Alexandra Pelosi's low-budget videocam diary of being on the 2000 campaign trail with George W. Bush.
If that last name -- Pelosi -- rings a bell, it's because she is indeed the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, the Minority House Leader. She was at the time (and might still be for all I know) a reporter for NBC news, and as you would expect, a lifelong Democrat.
I suppose the producers of The Passionate Eye thought they were making some devastating point about the press coverage of the campaign; the herd mentality, etc. Truly, though, this is no great surprise to any thoughtful observer of politics and the media. They had a more sinister interpretation, too: (I paraphrase) That George Bush used his Machiavellian gift of charm to win over the press and thus the election.
Bollocks. The press was about 90% in the tank for Gore, and the overall coverage reflected that.
What you do come away from the film with is that George Bush is an immensely likeable, funny guy. As Matt Labash wrote in the Weekly Standard:
Hopelessly lowbrow, Bush is blessed with matchless comic timing. We see him posing as a chirpy male steward, welcoming reporters on the plane, then angrily snapping at them when they ask for peanuts. We see him reprising his male cheerleader days, pretzel-ing his body into letters to spell "Victory" after Super Tuesday. At one photo op, Pelosi accosts Karl Rove with her shaky hand-held camera. "Why are you lying?" she asks. "I'm not a journalist," Rove calmly replies. "I'm not a liar." Someone grabs the camera and turns the tables on Pelosi, prompting her to distance herself from other journalists by saying "I don't like these guys." "You don't like me?" Bush asks, incredulous, his head popping into the frame like a groundhog emerging from his hole, late to the party. "You call this objective journalism?"
Not that the moonbats of the Democratic Underground would appreciate (or understand) the point, but no normal person viewing this could doubt Bush's native canniness and people-skills. I've met many people who are intelligent who have the sense of humor of a turnip -- however, I've never met someone who is humorous who isn't also very bright.
The film has already aired on HBO in the States; if you haven't seen it yet and you're in Canada or on satellite or close enough to the border to pick it up, Newsworld will be rebroadcasting it on Saturday February 5 at 10pm ET.
Or you could buy it on Amazon here.
If it's Friday, it must be time for another incomprehensible, if visually dazzling, flash animation!
Seriously, I have no idea what this is about, but it is very well done. There's music, so you might want to turn your speakers down if you're at work.
i wanna be a high school football hero
with an s.a.t. score less than zero
i wanna try to drink my weight in beer-o
I won't be live-blogging tomorrow's Super Bowl, as I've got a few other things to do.
Also, I am still bitter about last year's effort. Or maybe I'm still hungover.
I shall, however, venture a brave prediction: New England wins, 24-10.
I would also like to point out that the Patriots' star linebacker has the second-most-perfect American name:
Tedy Bruschi. Pronounced "Brewski." As in "Fetch me another brewski while you're up."
And yes, the spelling of his first name is as it's listed on both the Patriots' and NFL's official pages. So that's why it's only the second-most perfect American name
The first-most-perfect American name? Former U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. These guys should really get together and open up a sports bar. They could call it Larry and Tedy's or something.
You might recall this post from a couple of weeks ago, which dealt with search strings to access unsecured remote webcams.
Some kind soul has collected a whole bunch (719 at last count) of these, figured out their locations, and thumbnailed them. I think such dedication deserves a visit, yes?
Via The Presurfer
I'm probably going to be very short on posting over the next week, so here's a trio of games to keep you occupied. If you play just one a day, the time will fly by unnoticed!
Here's a stupid rodeo game!
Here's a WWI aerial combat game!
And here's a first-person shooter, which is actually kind of interesting!
Amman - A budding romance between a Jordanian man and woman turned into an ugly public divorce when the couple found out that they were in fact man and wife, state media reported on Sunday.Separated for several months, boredom and chance briefly re-united Bakr Melhem and his wife Sanaa in an Internet chat room, the official Petra news agency said.
Bakr, who passed himself off as Adnan, fell head over heels for Sanaa, who signed off as Jamila (beautiful) and described herself as a cultured, unmarried woman - a devout Muslim whose hobby was reading, Petra said.
Cyber love blossomed between the pair for three months and soon they were making wedding plans. To pledge their troth in person, they agreed to meet in the flesh near a bus depot in the town of Zarqa, northeast of Amman.
The shock of finding out their true identities was too much for the pair.Upon seeing Sanaa-alias-Jamila, Bakr-alias-Adnan turned white and screamed at the top of his lungs: "You are divorced, divorced, divorced" - the traditional manner of officially ending a marriage in Islam.
"You are a liar," Sanaa retorted before fainting, the agency said.
Via The Inquirer
Milk can softball toss: Toss the ball backhanded at the can's front lip to create backspin. It's also best if you release close to the same level as the cans' tops.BB gun star shootout: Instead of firing away at the red star, shoot a pattern around it. Hitting red is a waste of ammo. Be patient, since generally there's no time limit.
"Basketball" free-throw shootout: Technically these aren't allowed to be called basketball games because the rims aren't circular, as they appear from a straight-on perspective. They're oval. (That's why you'll always see a required sign noting "Not regulation rims.") Also, the basketballs usually are overinflated.
If you're into winning giant stuffed animals, this might be the best $3.95 you've ever spent.
Via boingboing
nothing but vanity
can’t you see
feel deception
lost direction
BERLIN - A plan by a German zoo to test the sexual appetites of a group of suspected homosexual penguins has sparked outrage among gay and lesbian groups, who fear zookeepers might force them to turn straight.
Those diabolical zookeepers! Oh, you meant the penguins?
"All sorts of gay and lesbian associations have been e-mailing and calling in to protest," said a spokesman for the zoo in the northwestern city of Bremerhaven on Friday.He said the zoo concluded the penguins might be gay after seeing male penguins trying to mate with other males and trying to hatch offspring out of stones.
Not the sharpest knives in the drawer, are they? Oh, you thought I meant the zookeepers?
German media reported that female Swedish penguins
Hubba, hubba.
would be brought to the zoo to test the theory, but when word got out about the plan, the phones started ringing."Nobody here is trying to break-up same sex pairs by force," the zoo's director Heike Kueck told public broadcaster NDR. "We don't know if the three male pairs are really gay or just got together because of a lack of females."
I think they're just trying to shock their parents.
cool rain on hot summer stone
the odor fills my presence
of freshly dug grave and death and night
These are interesting: Pictures that change as you walk by them. Very effective for Halloween parties and such, I would think, if a bit pricey -- $75 for an 11x14" print, $19 for a 5x7".
How do they work? Well it's not a closely guarded trade secret. The effect is created by a lenticular lens mounted to a computer interlaced print. As the viewer changes perspective he sees a different part of the interlaced image, causing the image to shift. The entire effect is completely self contained and requires no power source.
Here's another, turned into an animated .gif:
The rest of the gallery is here. Roll your cursor over the pictures to see them change.
Via The Green Head
it gets boring just looking
i feel like Bill Cosby
pouring in the pudding
OK. I'll explain this as best I can. You are the noted comedian Bill Cosby, handing out pudding to people on the street, then clonking them over the head with your camera and dragging their bodies away to bury in a pit. Sometimes this wins you cash, or more pudding. Once you've got enough cash, or buried enough bodies, you can make a phone call and flee.
If your camera breaks or if you run out of pudding, you can go to the city to get it fixed or buy more pudding. For some reason the store is run by Rosie O'Donnell.
I give up. The instructions are displayed before you start the game. I couldn't link to it directly, but go here and click on Play This Game on the right-hand side, approximately in the middle of the screen.
Warning: Music, sound and violence, if of a rather cartoonish variety.
Via Screenhead
look out the left the captain said
the lights down there, that’s where we’ll land
i saw a falling star burn up
above the las vegas sands
This takes forever to load, but it's worth it if you have a fast connection. It's a NASA-generated animation of the air traffic above the U.S. and southern Canada over a 24-hour period. Either that or an anthill.
I remember a documentary that showed radar maps of the Eastern Seaboard and the Atlantic approaches in the immediate hours after 9/11, with aircraft diverting north or back to Europe and the usual blizzard of activity winking out as planes landed at the nearest airport. Eerie stuff. It's nice to see things back to normal.
Note: You'll need to set your screen resolution to at least 1024x768 to access the Quick Time controls at the bottom of the page.
Via J-Walk Blog
One of the enduring truths to come out of the recent U.S. presidential election is that John Kerry's handlers should have tried very hard to keep their candidate at least three football fields away from any type of sporting equipment.
Someone put up this entertaining page contrasting Bush and Kerry in similar situations, and it's worth a few chuckles.
Many of the pictures I'd seen before, but not this one; and it does seem a fitting farewell. I laughed out loud.
Via The Presurfer
peek in, sneak about
i'm gonna snoop and call you out
i've caught you, your hands are red
However, I'm pleased to let you know that I quickly cracked the case.
The case of beer, of course. What case were you thinking of?
evil hearted you
you will keep deceiving me
with your false smile
and your mermaid songs
This is from an article comparing British and American smiling styles.
“I see a bit of the full risorius in Tony Blair, but the American political elite cannot do it any more, which is a bit sad,” he said. “They have lost that dignity. In blind tests George Bush’s smile emerged as cynical rather than pleasurable.”
Oh, of course. It's not like politics would ever corrupt the rigorous discipline of Psychology. That's never been known to happen.
I find Bush's smile to be genuine. But what do I know? I'm just a mere expert on detecting sincere smiles. Or at least I was when I took this test a few months ago. I think I got 18 or 19 right out of twenty. So there.
Via NealeNews
I've been blogging for about 3 years now, which in blogyears means that I'm about 40. (I give it a 13.3333:1 ratio.) Yes, I know that people had obsessively-updated web pages and bulletin boards for years and years before, but blogs only really took off with the introduction of BlogSpot and especially after 9/11.
We'll date it from the year 2001, then.
Aaarrgh. This is what I hate about trying to write seriously. I start windbagging off on tangents and then start qualifying and hedging and as I say below in page 3, section II (c) para. xxvvi, depending on how the case presently in the Court of Queen's Bench proceeds --
Oops, I did it again.
Every now and then I think I should write something for new bloggers or those who are thinking about getting into it. And then I have another beer and somehow the piece never seems to get written.
I'm hardly the ticket to fame with my ~50 readers per day, but I've been doing this awhile, and I've learned a few things in spite of my stubbornness.
So rather than roll out my Grand Unified Theory Of Blogging sometime around the year 2011, I thought I might dispense my wisdom in more digestible dribs and drabs.
Using, for example, the simple Q&A format:
Q: Why should I blog?
A: Because there's a whole wide world out there thirsting for what you have to say.
Q: That would just be pictures of my cat.
A: Welcome to the blogosphere!
Q: Can you please stop saying things like "blog" and "blogosphere"?
A: Nope. We're stuck with 'em.
Et cetera. If I come up with something else, I'll keep you posted.
(Which in itself is a kind of "insider" joke. Ha! Ha! You have so much to learn!)
jowl by jowl translucent white skin
hair on the back
abe vigoda's dead
No he's not. Abe Vigoda, whom you might recall as the character of Det. Fish on the 70's sitcom Barney Miller is still alive and kicking.
And to prove it, a programmer with a bit too much time on his hands developed a plugin for the Firefox browser that will provide minute-by-minute confirmation of Mr. Vigoda's corporeal integrity:
Part of my daily routine is to check on Abe Vigoda's current status, helpfully provided by the good people at AbeVigoda.com. To help keep me informed on this subject, I decided to write this Firefox browser extension.When Firefox starts up, this extension automatically fetches Abe Vigoda's current status from AbeVigoda.com, and displays it in a small panel on the status bar. It periodically does so again every so often, so that you always have relatively recent information on Abe Vigoda's status.
I know you're dying -- pun not intended -- to check it, so click here.
That isn't an official Abe Vigoda domain or page, just something put up specifically for this purpose. Poor Mr. Vigoda doesn't seem to have a website, but I found the Abe Vigoda Shrine here.
(Also, the lyrics quoted above are from a remix of Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead".)
Via Diversionz
-----
Military police are investigating a cruel hoax in which a man wearing an Army dress uniform falsely told the wife of a soldier that her husband had been killed in Iraq. ... Fort Stewart officials would not identify the Army wife who reported to military police that a man posing as a casualty assistance officer came to her door Feb. 10."Right off the bat, she noticed some things were not right," [ Fort Stewart spokesman Lt. Col. Robert] Whetstone said. "The individual's uniform wasn't correct - there were no markings or name tags. Plus, the person was alone, and she knew one person does not make (death) notifications."
...
Military police described the suspected hoaxer as being 6-feet, 1-inch tall and about 180 pounds with black or brown hair and a pale complexion. He was reported to be driving a blue or green pickup truck with chrome wheels, oversized tires and a Georgia license plate.
Gee, that sounds like an authentic Chaplain Death Wagon to me. Wonder what gave him away?
If they catch the creep, they should turn him over to the troops for a bit of friendly bayonet practice.
Via NealeNews
honey your efforts are in vain
if you hear me call my name
if you hear me, baby, blink!
Everyone needs a hobby. Going through video tapes frame-by-frame so that I can post screencaps of celebrities with their eyes closed isn't my idea of one, but it's probably more wholesome than trying to capture upskirt shots.
everyone loves the king of the sea
ever so kind and gentle is he
tricks he will do when children appear
and how they laugh when he's near!
Prime Minister Paul Martin said Thursday that Canada would not join the contentious U.S. missile defense program, a decision that will further strain brittle relations between the neighbors but please Canadians who fear it could lead to an international arms race.
Mainly the moronic Liberal Women's Caucus and whining Quebecers who aren't going to vote for him no matter how much he plays the anti-American card.
The Bush administration has tried to make a public show of understanding that Martin heads up a minority government that could fall over such a contentious debate. But after the announcement, U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci told reporters he was perplexed over Canada's decision, which he said effectively allows Washington to decide what to do if a missile was headed toward Canada."We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty — its seat at the table — to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming towards Canada," said the outgoing ambassador, who had vigorously urged Canada to sign on the plan.
Martin, ending nearly two years of debate over whether Canada should participate in the development or operation of the multibillion-dollar program, insisted his decision had not relinquished Canada's sovereignty over its airspace and that Ottawa would expect to be consulted what to do about any missile passing over Canada.
"We are certainly intending to defend our sovereignty and our air space and if anything develops in our air space, we expect, as a sovereign state, to be notified and have influence on any decisions," he said. "Canada's a sovereign nation and we would expect and insist on being consulted on any intrusion into our air space."
Listen up, Flipper. I'll speak slowly. Clap your fins together and make occasional oik-oik chitchit! noises. Now, where's Timmy and what have you done with him?
If a missile enters Canadian airspace it'll be travelling a polar route. I haven't worked out the distances, but a North Korean missile shot at the western US would likely be on a flatter trans-Pacific trajectory. (And given the likely accuracy of it, I wouldn't feel too comfortable in Vancouver or Victoria if they aimed it at Seattle, or San Francisco, for that matter.) If the Norks do come across the pole, that missile will be at terminal velocity about 100km over Canada as it enters its ballistic phase.
At that point it is about 2 to 3 minutes from target. If you think the Americans are going to be phoning around the world trying to figure out which dictator's behind you're smooching on your next "Soft Power" tour you are freaking kidding yourself. They will order the shootdown and if they are wringing their hands about not getting your permission, they might drop you a letter in the next diplomatic pouch apologizing for it.
Or maybe not.
What makes this exceptionally idiotic, even for you, is that we've already signed on to missile defence at least insofar in that we've agreed to forward all relevant targeting information from our assets in NORAD to NORTHCOM, charged with running the ABM program. See this exchange of letters in August, 2004 from Canadian ambassador Michael Kergin to then-US Sec. of State Colin Powell confiming the agreement.
That's all the Americans were asking for. That's what we gave them. And now you want to run around waving your hands and yelling about your new-found virginity, to placate some of the stupidest people in this country.
They must be shaking their heads in Washington. They thought they were dealing with adults and instead they found a pack of petulant, sulky teenagers on the other end of the line.
Robert Fulford, in a piece in the National Post some years ago, put it best:
Dean Acheson, the designer of American strategy in the Cold War, tried hard to give Canada the respect we yearned for, but he wrote an essay ("Canada: Stern Daughter of the Voice of God") to let it be known that our role as broker made us no better than a footnote and our habit of scolding the Americans was annoying if occasionally amusing.
Except now we can no longer invoke the presumptive moral authority of God; and so must make do with the collective braintrust of the Liberal Party. Not a good exchange, all things considered.
Here, as if anyone cared, are my predictions for the Oscars:
Best Picture: Damned if I know.
Best Director: See above.
Best Actor: I would put money on it being some guy.
Best Actress: Isn't it sexist to call them actresses? I'm just askin'.
Best Song: Um, there were songs?
As you might have guessed, I'm not too terribly enthusiastic about the Oscars. In fact, I haven't seen any of the films nominated. That doesn't mean, though, that I don't care deeply about the filmic arts.
For example, I found especially moving the blooper outtakes from The Passion Of The Christ.
Note: I think you'll detect fairly quickly that it's a parody -- there's nothing risque about it, though some people might be offended. There's no direct link, so scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll find it in the centre.
Note squared: You can click through the opening ad -- the second one, immediately before the clip -- maybe not.
Via grow-a-brain
when i'm calling you-oo-oo
oo-oo-oo!
you will answer too-oo-oo
oo-oo-oo!
In the days before GPS, this was all-too-tragically common:
Other Photoshopped romance-novel covers here. (Some might be mildly unsafe for work.)
This page contains all entries posted to the blog quebecois in February 2005. They are listed from oldest to newest.
January 2005 is the previous archive.
March 2005 is the next archive.
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.
