Firbank

Why can't I read Ronald Firbank? I've been trying for years to read his very short novels and have failed every time. After a few pages I don't have the faintest idea what's going on.

(Oddly, inside my Firbank volume, was a notecard with some numbers written on it and the word flagellator. What any of this refers to escapes me.)

Job

I've been reading actual books over the past week or so. I used to read the things all the time, one after another, but eventually I got burned out on them. Then I started spending all my free time online reading those damnable blog things. Well, now I'm back to the volumes made from dead trees. First it was my Oulipo Compendium, then Caradec's Raymond Roussel biography, then Roussel's odd play Dust of Suns, and now I'm reading Apollinare's Amorous Exploits of a Young Rakehell, a very short pornographic novel he wrote for money in 1907 thereabouts.

The thing about the Apollinare book that most struck me is the biographical piece on him printed inside. He wrote this novel while working as "curator of forbidden books at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris". That's my dream job right there: curator of forbidden books.

Vacant

I've been discovering a new world over the past week or so. Or perhaps I should say I've been rediscovering a previously discovered world I'd sort of been neglecting for the past few years. Anyway, this new world has little or no internet access, but it does have satellite TV and a damn good library. Oh, there's also a couch for me to lie on.

Old

Yesterday I went to Goodwill and spent way to much time going through their antique book section. I looked at every single volume until I got dizzy. Naturally the bulk the books were on low shelves, so my knees and lower back took a beating. I'm too tall and too old to be hunkered down for any length of time. And I didn't find what I was looking for either. Feh.

Fried day

Is it Friday already? Weekends are meaningless when you're unemployed and have no life. Bleh.

Feh

Don't feel like writing in blogs or reading them right now. The closest word to describe how I feel is blah. I think I'll spend the day on the couch rereading my Oulipo Compendium.

Happy Gnu Year

The first thing I need to do this year is get a new calendar. Why do I always wait until the last minute to get a damn calendar?

Good riddance, 2004

I certainly hope 2005 is better than 2004.

Codex Seraphinianus

My sister came down for Christmas and brought her copy of Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus. I hadn't seen a copy of this book since the 80's when my sister checked out the two volume edition from her college library. She finally broke down and bought a copy earlier this year. It's the single volume Franco Maria Ricci edition from the early 90's. Exquisitely weird. I have to get my hands on a copy of this book, but I dont really want to spend $250-plus to get it.

Holiday heck

Ugh, the holidays are over. Well, almost. That whole New Year's thing is still around the corner. Anyway, most of the main holiday chaos is over.

Festive feh

I'm going to use Christmas as an excuse not to post for the next few days. We don't even celebrate Christmas anymore. Nope. Every year since '97 we sacrifice a goat to Odin and dance naked around a bonfire. It's keen.

What the hell?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Cold!

Why is it so damn cold? Oh, yeah, it's winter. Yesterday, I got up and looked at the temperature and it was eleven degrees. That's Fahrenheit, not centigrade. We're not used to that kind of cold down here. It was even too cold to spend more than a few minutes online, since my computer's in the coldest room of the house. So I spent the whole day under a blanket on the couch. I plan on doing the same today, even though today it's probably thirty degrees outside.

No, no! A thousand times, no!

"The purpose of ClownResourceDirectory.com is to share, educate, and act as a gathering place for people, who want to be clowns."

Be afraid, be very afraid.

News you can't possibly use

Breaking news! There's a drunken moose alert in southern Norway. So stay the hell out of southern Norway if you can.

Folklore?

With a URL like Folklore.org you'd think they'd have lots of...you know, folklore, but, oddly, it appears to be mainly tons of stories about the original Macintosh.

1-2-3-4!!

The arizona hardcore punk rock flyer archive 1982-1984 has darn near a gazillion gig flyers from bands like Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Minutemen, Husker Du, etc.

The ugly internet

The Browser Emulator lets you look at websites using emulations of a variety of ancient web browsers like NCSA Mosiac, Hot Java, and early versions of Netscape and IE.

Les Femmes au Pinocchio

I don't quite understand Pinocchia.com. It's lots of pictures of beautiful women with Pinocchio noses added with Photoshop. Apparently it's a fetish site. [Safe for work? Search me.]

Groundhogs

There's a big groundhog that I see occasionally hanging around in the backyard. I'd love to have it for a pet, but that's unlikely. Imagine sitting on the couch with a nice big groundhog curled up in your lap. No?

The best groundhog website I've seen is HogHaven. Make sure your speakers are on.

Holiday Wookiees

Last week I downloaded the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special that originally aired in late November 1978. (I got it off the Shareaza network, and it took forever since I'm on dial-up.)

George Lucas reportedly wants this travesty banned, which is understandable considering how bad it is. The first twenty minutes are nothing but untranslated Wookiee jibber-jabber. Seriously.

I thought it would be humorously bad, but it's not really. Other than the occasional bizarre moment that makes you wonder just how much drugs everyone was taking, it's just boring and/or embarrassing.

Odd audio

Clay's Oddities Wav Page has a bunch of .wav files of various strange things like scary fundamentalist preachers saying stupid things, a drunk John Wayne giving a speech, and a dumb (and very unlucky) guy trapped in a phone booth calling 911 for help.

An observation

Why is it that the cars on the street with the loudest, most hot-rodded exhaust systems are invariably the slowest damn vehicles on the street? And why are they almost always in front of me?

Dang it!

I was at a thrift store this morning and saw an old accordion for $35. It was a small one, maybe a foot high. Of course I didn't have $35, but, more importantly, I don't have a job, nor do I know how to play an accordion. But I want it!

Story time!

I wish these deranged childrens' books actually existed; we need them now more than ever.

Update: This link doesn't work anymore. I think the owners were getting too much traffic, so they're now denying everyone access.

Huh?

A few days ago I was watching TV and a during a commercial for Citi, there was some familiar music playing. Then it hit me, it was The Feelies, of all people. The song: "Slow Down" from their 1986 album, The Good Earth (which I have on vinyl).

Of course none of you know what I'm talking about, so I'll stop here.

Do they even pay attention?

Saturday afternoon I was watching a documentary about children with a rare genetic disorder called progeria that causes them to rapidly age and have to suffer the same types of things people in their 70's-90's face. During a commercial break, there was an ad for Oil of Olay. The voiceover mentioned things like how it would make your skin look younger. To put it mildly, I was shocked they would let such an appalling juxtaposition occur. Do they even pay attention to what commercials run during various programs? It's almost as bad as seeing weight loss commercials during a program about a famine.

Mundane

I'm back to blogging. I feel better, but but not substantially so.

A break

I think I'm going to take a blogging break for about a week. Maybe my new brain tonic will be working by the end of the week and I can once again stand the idea of blogs.

Monk Time!

A few years ago I found about a weird band from the 60's called The Monks. They wore only black, had ropes around their necks, shaved the tops of their heads like some monks do (did?), and played particulary crazed tunes. I never could find any of their music, but recently I found The Monks Official Website, which has a biography of the band, reviews, photos, and a few songs available for download (unfortunately in RealAudio format). Strange stuff.

And how was your evening?

I've felt very leaden over the past month or so. At times all I want to do is lie on the couch and watch TV, the problem is there's nothing on TV. I have a satellite dish and get around 100 channels, but there's little on that I actually want to see.

Last night I found myself stretched out on the couch like a zombie, mindlessly flipping through the channels. And there was nothing but garbage on: home improvement stuff, sports dreck, shopping channels, stuff I've already seen, etc.

There's ten or so religious channels, most of which are fundamentalist ranting of the sort I was raised with and am quite sick of. I zipped through those channels quickly. I paused on the Mormon channel for a bit, but didn't have the slightest idea what they were talking about. Then I hit a Catholic channel with an elderly nun doing Hail Marys or whatever (I'm not Catholic) to a room filled with younger nuns. As she droned on, the camera would periodically scan the room and show the faces of the younger nuns, but mostly it was frozen on the very old, very dull nun. An attractive younger nun's face briefly appeared on the screen and I perked up a bit. Perhaps a bit too much because I ended up lying there thinking, "Show the nuns! Show the nuns!"

Smashing Boutique

Early last year I came up with an idea for a business where people could go and relieve stress by smashing things. Today I found out that in Spain there's a scrapyard that will, for a fee, let stressed out Spaniards take a sledgehammer to various items.

All my bizarre ideas end up existing. I should come up with something really stupid like edible furniture. [Link via The Presurfer.]

Found photos. Free pie

Big Happy Funhouse is a photoblog made up entirely of found photos. Weirdly hypnotic.

Breaking wind

Breaking Wind: Legendary Farts collects "folktakes about flatulance". Seriously. My own personal favorite is General Pumpkin.

Strolling down the highway

Time Has Told Me collects a bunch of Nick Drake .mp3's. As far as I can tell, it's mostly covers, but if you like Nick Drake, worth digging into.

What?

Solipsistic is a peculiar assemblage of old photos and Dada randomness. [Link via Monkeyfilter.]

Every working day

Honey, Where You Been So Long is a yet another one of those new fangled .mp3 blogs all the kids have these days. This one features pre-war (as in WWII) blues. [Link via The Leptard.]

Not in my lunchbox

Cock O'lada is "the first drink out of a cocktube." What's a cocktube, you ask? Do you really want to know? (Not safe for work.) [Link via Fleshbot.]

Old cameras

The Yashica Electro 35 & Rangefinder camera user Homepage would've been really useful to me seven or eight years ago. Back then I found a Yashica Electro 35 in a thrift store for $20. It was my first "serious" camera, but the camera was so battered it looked like someone had used it to hammer nails. But it worked. It also had sand in it. I still have it and it still works. They're great cameras.

Legendary Lester

A few days ago I found an old interview with guitar legend Les Paul from 1977.

Odd music

Oddmusic "is for anyone interested in unique, unusual, ethnic, or experimental music and instruments."

My favorite section is the gallery where they list various weird instruments and have sound samples.

Emulators!

EMU-Russia is a site with darn near a gazillion questionably legal old video game ROMs to download and play on your PC in your favorite console emulator. Now I can play Super Mario Brothers again.

Sock blog anyone?

Niqkita's Sock Journal is a blog about socks. Really. Socks.

A few days off

Since my two year blog anniversary a few days ago, I've been taking some time off from the blog. Since I'm elderly, I need my rest, as does my very elderly blog.

Two Years!

Today's the second anniversary of this blog. I'm surprised it's lasted this long. And I have no idea how much longer it'll last.

Two years is a huge amount of time in the blogging world where blogs typically only last a few months before the owner gets bored. It took me a bit longer to get bored, but I was too stubborn to stop.

If you're curious about what Volume 22 looked like in the early days, here's a link to earliest version at the Wayback Machine. (And, yes, I did post these same two links a few weeks ago.)

Thanks to all of the people who've read, commented on, and linked to this blog over the past two years.

3-way collision

Yesterday I was in a discount department store and found myself in the toy isle. But on the other side of the isle was pet products, and a little further down, rat poison. Call me crazy, but these three types of items strike me as things that shouldn't be together.

Spanking Machine

Finally, someone has invented a spanking machine: "Robospanker is the world's first robotic spanking machine. Created by DD Machinery, Robospanker is one of the most unique and fasinating adult toys on the market. DD Machinery was founded in 1997, and has for years been the pioneers in the research and development of fine new bondage products." (Needless to say, this site isn't safe for work.) [Link via Fleshbot.]

New Invention

I came up with a new invention this morning: the hovercraft toilet. It's not a hovercraft that has an onboard toilet, it's more of a toilet that's also a hovercraft.

How long have we have had indoor plumbing and flushable toilets? A hundred or more years, right? Well, it's just not that impressive anymore being able to flush stuff away. Going to the toilet is boring. You sit there, do your business for awhile, and eventually you get up and flush it away. How dull. Of course, you can read, but that's still a bit boring as well. No, it just won't do. Going to the toilet needs some excitement. We need the hovercraft toilet. And we need it now more than ever.

Ideally, the unit will be about the size of a rowboat or smaller. Naturally, it will be enclosed for privacy because you can't have people zipping around their yards on a toilet for everyone to see. What would the neighbors think? It will also need safety features such as seat-belt, roll-bars, airbag, headlights, break-lights, turn-signals, rear-view mirrors, and possibly even a parachute.

What I need to do now is draw up some plans and see about getting some investors interested so that we can build a working prototype.

Proto punk aquatic lifeforms

A band I've been curious about for at least ten years are the Electric Eels. They were an obscure early to mid 70's Cleveland proto punk band that were supposed to be unbeliveable. I first read about them in Jon Savage's excellent, England's Dreaming. I never found anything by them, nor did I ever make any huge effort to look.

Anyway, yesterday out of the blue, I decided to look online and found out there's an official Electric Eels site with photos, a history of the band, and even an album for sale. Suddenly they didn't seem so mysterious. They also have .mp3's of "Cyclotron" and "Aggitated". "Cyclotron" is glorious, genuine punk before there was such a thing. "Aggitated" sort of reminds me of a slowed down version of Black Flag's "Wasted" circa 1978. (Oddly, these two songs were released on a 45 in 1978, three years after the Eels had broken up.)

Strange tales

The Anomalist features links to news stories from around the world on various unexplained phenomena, strange discoveries, etc.

Ruins

Modern Ruins Photographic Essays has at least 20 different galleries of different abandoned sites. My own personal favorite is Hospital X, a creepy old hospital that still has lots of old equipment in it. [Link via Metafilter or Monkeyfilter and I don't feel like digging around to find out which.]

Shrunken heads anyone?

Head Hunting: History of the Shuar has pretty much all you'd ever want to know about shrunken heads. Lots of gross pictures, too.

AARRGGHH!!

OK, that's enough! I'm done with civilization. From here on out I will live my life underground in tunnels I'll burrow in a secluded site in the woods. My life will be like that of a giant mole. I'll have no more truck with your silly above ground laws and your crude sky-god. Do whatever you want, it has no meaning for me anymore.

Get Medieval

I'd liked to have had a interesting or suitably horrifying election day story to regale you with, but the whole experience was rather mundane. I didn't see any Republican and Democratic lawyers challenging anyone's right to vote. There were no arguments. There were no claims of voter fraud or intimidation. Nothing. The only thing out of the ordinary was that I had to stand in line for a lot longer than usual. And since it's unseasonably hot, I got to bake in the mid-morning sun for about 20 minutes.

I vote in an elementary school, and when the line finally moved so that I was actually inside the building, I noticed a full-sized suit of armor standing in a corner. It was holding what appeared to be a real sword that was over a yard long. I couldn't imagine having a suit of armor in my elementary school when I was growing up. We would've destroyed it. And I don't even want to contemplate what some of my classmates would've done with a sword.

Let's get primitive

Prehistoric Music Ireland features a history of prehistoric Irish instruments and they also sell several types of reproductions. [Link via The Presurfer.]

Foiled again

Yesterday at Metafilter I saw a post about the old "Trick Donkeys" puzzle. I've had a small cardboard version of this puzzle for eight or nine years and never could figure it out. (I'm a moron.) I finally got it yesterday after an online hint.

There's also a really cool version done in Shockwave.

Free Blues

Saturday I found a nice selection of old blues .mp3's.

Early Recorded Sounds

As far as recorded sound goes, it doesn't get much more primitive than tinfoil.com. They have a wide selection of the earliest known recordings and Edison wax cylinders. They actually have a recording from 1878. It's unintelligible, but still, it's 125 years old!

Old Classic Hindi Songs

Old Classic Hindi Songs has a ridiculously large selection of, yes, old classic Hindi songs in .mp3 format. Many of these recordings are from Indian films.

It takes a worried man

I'm not huge on the Carter Family, but they are an fascinating and very historically important American musical group. If you're interested in sampling their music, The Carter Family, Guitar Chords and Lyrics quite a few .mp3's. [Link via gmtPlus9.]

I wish I was a mole in the ground

I'll be so glad when this election is over. Unfortunately, if 2000 is anything to go by, this election won't be over for a month or more.

I think we'll look back on the 1996 presidential election as the last normal one we ever had.

Origins of a Blues

Years ago I got into old blues tunes and one of my favorites was Muddy Waters' signature song, "Rollin' Stone", which came out in 1950. A year or two later I heard a song called "Deep Sea Blues" (I can't find the lyrics) done by someone named Tommy McClennan. It was from 1940 and it was basically the same song.

For years I wondered who the hell Tommy McClennan was and who wrote the song. My Muddy Waters album lists Waters as the author. I wondered if McClennan was actually Waters recording under a different name. Waters' real name was McKinley Morganfield. McKinley and McClennan are sort of similar. Kinda. Same guy?

Later, to confuse matters even more, I got a John Lee Hooker CD not that long ago with a song on it called "Catfish Blues", and it's the same song as "Rollin' Stone" and "Deep Sea Blues". The Hooker tune came out around 1950-51. Who wrote this damn song? (And the lyrics site I linked to above attributes it to Jimi Hendrix, who definitely didn't write it.

Well, yesterday I finally found an article on the song. The story ends up being far more complicated than I imagined.

Burnt Weenie Sandwich

The Zappa Bootleg Page reproduces the cover art of loads of Frank Zappa bootlegs. (I could really do without the Zappa midi music playing in the background though.)

Internet Crime Archives

Internet Crime Archives is a really irritatingly designed page (they even have midi music you can't turn off), but there's plenty of interesting information.

Build Your Own Seismograph

A few months ago I wondered if there was a simple way I could build a seismograph or seisometer to measure earth tremors. I finally did some research online and found out there's plenty of material on making seismographs or seisometers. And this page has loads of links on the subject.

Of course, I'll probably never build one.

Make Room for Dada

I can't remember if I've ever seen the Digital Dada Library before, but it's an amazing collection if you're interested in Dada. [Link via Metafilter.]

Gaaaahhh!!

File under: blog attrocities.

Ick

Groupie Central is a messageboard of supposed groupies telling of sexual encounters with various celebrities. It's... um.... enlightening.

Kiss my bitter ass!

Bitter Waitress is a blog featuring stories of cheap customers and celebrity behavior in restaurants.

Music for an eclectic world

Actual discs! Real tunes! has a oddball collection of .mp3's and Real Audio files. The selection isn't huge, but it's interesting. I recomend the two Burning Spear tracks, the Agrovators cut, and Rev. Robert Wilkins' "Prodigal Son", which was done by the Rolling Stones on Beggar's Banquet.

Open Source Audio

The excellent Internet Archive has a section called Open Source Audio with nearly 3,000 public domain recordings. Lots of old blues stuff.

Public Domain MP3s

Public Domain 4U has three or four dozen public domain .mp3's. It's mainly old country blues stuff like Charlie Patton and Skip James, but there's other things as well.

Question: Why were so many old blues guys named things like Blind So-and-So? Why were all those guys blind?

Finally

Hey Volume 22 finally made the Wayback Machine. I've been looking for it there for a year or more with no luck.

Search Requests of the Stupid

Yes, one again it's time to clear out the old stupid search request bin.

are there suppose to be a whole bunch of white bumps on my vagina?
Ahhh...ew.

spanking mom OR mother -monkey -brand -new -bdsm site:blogspot.com
If you find that blog, keep it to yourself, OK?

clowns frighten children
I've been saying this for years; why won't anyone listen?

na na nana sitting in the kitchen
Sometimes the internet confuses me.

pichers funny stuff that will make a seven year old light
I know of no humorous stories with anti-gravitational properties that are safe for children. Sorry.

poison dart frog market stats
I know the economy's bad, but I hadn't realized the poison dart frog market was in bad shape as well.

"No more small pee pee "
I'm proud to be the only site Google lists with that phrase.

generate nude men sign cartoon face breast flash
You do it first.

porno in north dakota
It's just like porn everywhere else except there's lots of snow.

Reflexology & goes on a rampage
Sometimes I love the internet.

wanking for fun and profit
Hell, I've been doing it for free all these years.

Internet Explorer grannies who like sex
But I use Firefox.

lyric "na nana na" 90's
The internet makes me sad sometimes.

we got smelly ear's
Well, good for you. Now go away.

naked school teacher pee "in front of class"
Teachers sometime have to resort to extreme measures to get students to pay attention these days.

you are, your ISP , s you are running on, your cover's blown
Sometimes the internet scares me.

Dukes of Hazzard, spanking
Uncle Jesse had to keep order some kind of way and spanking was his best idea.

il.kim porn.
OK, the search results for this just make me look unbalanced.

Groggy

Ugh, people. Why do I often feel so lousy after I wake up? And, no, I'm not hungover. Nor am I ill (at least not physically).

I wish I had a sort of temporary oblivion chamber. It'd be someplace where I could just shut myself off for a long period of time. I'd probably have to be sedated and maybe have an oxygen mask. I imagine I would also need to be fed intravenously and I would have to have a [shudder] catheter so I could get rid of wastes.

Well, it sounded like a good idea until the catheter bit. I don't want to get one of those.

Maybe I just need a good night's sleep.

Detail, horrible detail!

The Zoomquilt is an amazing work of collaborative art done in Flash. [Link via The Cartoonist.]

It's pretty amazing. Things come to mind like Escher, Dali, and The Exquisite Corpse, but those aren't adequate comparisons.

Altered books, etc.

A couple of days ago in my comments for the A Humament post, Cindy mentioned book altering, a subject I didn't know that much about. Surprisingly, there's quite a bit online about it. I'm not sure I like the idea of tons of people ruining books, but it's a fascinating subject and I do like a lot of the examples I've seen.

Art-E-Zine's Altered Books page is probably the best showing of what books look like once they've been altered. It's a graphics heavy site, so be warned.

Who would've known there's an International Society of Altered Book Artists?

Jenny's Altered Books has several galleries of her work, whoever she is. Nice stuff.

The Altered Book Main Page has galleries, tips, links, etc.

Apparently some people mail the books and let others work on them along some kind of altered book network. That, naturally, reminds me of Mail Art.

The Electronic Museum of Mail Art is probably as good as any place to start to see actual Mail Art.

MAIL ART 1955 to 1995: Democratic art as social sculpture is someone's thesis.

Fan Mail appears to be new works from over 150 artists.

A.1.Mail Art Archive is a new blog I ran across recently.

Mail Art sprang out of Fluxus. I've never really understood Fluxus, but then I don't think I've ever seriously tried to understand it.

More Randomness

The Icon Poet Creative Writing Toy takes a text you provide and replaces words with random syntactic equivalents. It sort of reminds me of the Oulipo's N+7 technique.

But is it a story?

Random Story Generator creates something vaguely resembling a story when you click a button.

Writing Machine

For many years I've dreamed of a writing machine that would spew out reams of interesting, uncanny prose; the Markov Textgenerator isn't quite it.

International Insults

Years ago in a thrift store I found a book called, The International Insult Dictionary. This book is apparently so out of print that I can't even find a mention of it online, but The Zompist Phrasebook is basically the same idea.

Example:
There's a corpse on the bed. Please change the sheets.
Il y a un cadavre sur le lit. S'il vous plaît, faites changer les draps.
Hay un muerto en mi cama. Por favor, cambie las sábanas.
Da liegt eine Leiche auf dem Bett. Bitte wechseln sie die Laken.

Linguistic Stuff

The sci.lang FAQ is interesting. OK, it's not. Nevermind.

Propaganda

Chinese Propaganda posters from 1963-79. [Link via Kingdom of Love.]

A Human Document

In 1980, British artist Tom Phillips published a book called, A Humument. So what, you say? Loads of people you've never heard of publish books you'll never read. Well, what makes it interesting is that Phillips took an obscure Victorian novel and painted over each page so that only a few words showed through, effectively finding a new narrative in an old book.

I've wanted a copy of this volume since I first read about it in the late 80's, but it appears to be both out of print and very expensive. I'll probably never get a copy, but it looks like Phillips' website reproduces the entire volume.

Subvertisements

Subvertise.org has many examples of subverted advertising, art, polical images, etc.

The Culture Jammer's Encyclopedia

The Culture Jammer's Encyclopedia has pages on Literary Forgeries, Fake Folks, Vandilism, Guerrilla Hacks, etc.

Hmmm...

there is a season: detourn detourn detourn.

Proof of mass stupidity

Dogpile's SearchSpy let's you view a real-time scrolling list of whatever people have been searching for. You can chose between a filtered or unfiltered version.

Blah

I'm having a blah day. Earlier I went for a walk and took some pictures and posted them at my moblog. Maybe I'll think of something to post here tomorrow. Or not. I don't know.

Collaborative Fiction

Ever feel like writing a novel or long story, but didn't feel like going through the trouble to actually write it? No? That's just me? OK. Anyway, Snoot's collaborative fiction page lets you write, and vote on, candidates to add to a continuing story.

They also have a binary fiction page where you can chose between different options at various points to change the direction of the story. And aparently you can add to these stories as well.

Porn How-To

Ever look at porn sites and marvel at the web design? No, me neither, but just play along. At Graphix & Web Design Zone "you can find all the information you need to be a successful, innovative designer for todays fast moving Adult Design Arena." They have tutorials, free graphics, and god only knows what else. (Oh, in case you were wondering, it's not safe for work because it's, you know, porn.)

Germans

I found this a couple of days ago. Is it Germans into cosplay or just Germans being...um, German.

A Legal Conundrum

It's against the law to take illegal drugs, and it's against the law to steal, but is it against the law to steal illegal drugs?

New Invention

I've got an idea for a new invention: disposable toilets. Now before you dismiss this idea as stupid, hear me out. The disposable toilet wouldn't require cleaning; you'd use it once and throw it away. It'd be constructed similarly to paper cups: wax-coated paper or cardboard. I can imagine a dispenser filled with them in every bathroom in the world.

OK, now you can dismiss this idea as stupid.

Songwritin' the easy way!

Use Greg's Country & Western Song-Writing Machine and you'll be playing at the Grand Ole Opry in no time. Maybe not.

Here's my song, called "I Wanna Whip Your Cow"

I met her in the Stone Age wrestlin' gators;
I can still recall that plastic nose she wore;
She was smellin' kind of funny when she shot me,
and I knew that I would upchuck on the floor;
A Klingon said I'd stay a dwarf forever;
She said to me that Rolaids made her high;
But who'd have thought she'd bobsled with a robot;
She freaked out on the lawn and screamed goodbye.

Useful or useless?

Markov Monkey Random Text Generator.

It's wrong, I tells ya!

Ah, the things one finds on the internet. Who knew there was a site devoted to sock monkeys having sex? Needless to say, it's not safe for work.

Useless, but slightly amusing

Like a lot of websites, the page for Sri Lanka's US embasy has a search feature, but this one displays all the particular searches for a particular letter. Like this one for the letter d. Why, I ask, would someone search the Sri Lankan embassy website for dog birthday parties? And why would the actual Sri Lankan embassy in the US use such a cheesy search engine?

Overalls? Chowder?

I was poking around the excellent Project Gutenberg yesterday and found an .mp3 of a recording from 1901 called, "Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder?" It's not even from a record, it's from a Edison cylinder. Most amusing. Put it on your iPod and astonish your friends. Or not. I don't really care.

Update: Here's the lyrics.

Jazzmaster

See The Higher Evolution of Off-Set Waist Guitars: A Tribute to Fender's Jazzmaster and Jaguar Guitars for way too much information about Jazzmaster and Jaguar guitars. [Link via Guitarz.]

I'm still kicking myself for not getting that used cream colored Jazzmaster I saw hanging in a local guitar store back in the late 80's. A few months later I got my much loathed Rickenbacker 480 for $200. But since I have the musical talent of a narcoleptic baboon, it doesn't really matter at this point.