"Lynn, you couldn't present a cat."
A series of Alan Partridge clips on You Tube.
I'm proofing an English textbook for primary students. The stories are not the best. Until this:
I'm Eito.
I wake up at six.
I go to school at eight.
I have a lot of balls.
I can't concentrate at all today. I really feel like a vegetable.
Which one?
British comedian and creator of "The Office" Ricky Gervais has launched his own podcast. Prepare to meet Karl Pilkington. And he's for real.
"Can I?"
"Yes."
"You mean no, don't you?"
This one is specially dedicated to all the people in my office who, heaven forbid, might have a little bit of extra time on their hands.
Wikipedia: Best of Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense
via Nutgroist
Here's a perfect example of a news story that doesn't need any commentary.
After being made to pluck pheasants and being sprayed with sour milk, feminist icon Germaine Greer has had enough and has walked out of the British TV reality show, Big Brother.
Greer, who reportedly appeared on the show in order to save her rainforest, protested about the bullying of some of the other contestants, including former wife of Sylvester Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen.
Greer becomes perhaps the first losing reality show contestant in the short history of the much-loved TV genre who intends to "look into the epidemiology of bullying" in the wake of her defeat.
Interviewed after her decision to leave the show, Greer seemed to compare the treatment meted out on Big Brother to the Holocaust:
Persecution is what happens, holocausts are what happens when good people do nothing.[But] I am an anarchist, we can disrupt situations, we don't take them over."
Maybe she should get in touch with the Japanese kid who burst all the yellow balloons at his Coming of Age Ceremony. Think of the disruption that pair could muster.
Guardian Unlimited: Greer walks out of 'bullying' Big Brother
(1) "The small woman from the Crankies is recovering in hospital after falling from a giant beanstalk" (Answer)
(2) Health experts in Australia yesterday warned people "not to build gadgets that allow the rapid consumption of alcohol" following an incident involving a 21-year old man and a helmet-mounted power tool. (Answer)
(3) In recent Ireland news, a crane pulling a car out of the sea was pulled out of the sea by a crane. (Answer)
(4) In football, Lee Carsley scored the winner in the most recent Merseyside Derby. (Answer)
"The patient describes himself as a devout Christian, but says he's never before seen Jesus in an x-ray."
First Coast News: Jesus Appears in Dental X-Ray
via Shawn
As a species, the human being will steal anything that is not nailed down.
Ireland's only medal in the Athens Olympics, a gold in Showjumping, may be taken away. It appears the horse was on drugs.
Click here for all you need to know on how to take digital photos from a kite.
via Joi Ito
Great headline: "Bush Took Cocaine at Camp David"
Even better subheading: "And Wife Laura Liked Dope, Says Book"
Our man in Turkmenistan, the one who passed a law banning beards, has been at it again.
The Rev. George Malkmus of North Carolina is one of several Christian
clergy promoting Bible-based food plans. His concept, the Hallelujah
Diet, draws on Genesis 1:29, banning all animal products except for
honey and promoting an 80 per cent raw diet. In biblical times, he
says, people who subsisted on a raw diet lived an average of 912
years. The Rev. Malkmus does employ a scientific researcher, who
determined that the Hallelujah Diet was deficient in vitamin B-12.
"This shocked me, that God's perfect plan could have a flaw," the
clergyman said. "But we realized that fruits and vegetables back then
were more nutritious because of the topsoil."
Hallelujah Acres: Brings You Back to the Garden
via Shawn
"When my dog pees, he leaves brown patches all over the lawn. Is he peeing fire?" – dog owner, Covington, KY.
The things people ask customer service hotlines.
via Boing Boing
Blue movie star, wrestler and comic foil for On Gaien Higashi Dori Chocoball Mukai made his wrestling comeback (Japanese) last night in Korakuen following his arrest for an alleged no-no involving a young lady and an "erotic dance" in Tokyo's Happening Bar last month.
Chocoball, on bail pending public obscenity charges, was in fine fettle last night, shouting it loud that he was back. Like in the Happening Bar, his sparring partner last night was also a woman.
The celebrations do not seem to have been dampened by the fact that Chocoball lost. Mixed wrestling has been born in Tokyo thanks to the intrepid Mr. Mukai.
Some Friday humour for you via Shawn. I say Friday humour not because today is Wednesday and I'm challenged but because the Golden Week holiday period begins tomorrow in Japan.
Be warned: these gags are of the oyaji variety and are cornier than a Japanese pizza.
"Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?"
"Apparently 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese and there are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them. It's either my mum or my dad...or maybe my older brother Colin, or my younger brother Ho Cha Chu, but I'm pretty sure it's Colin."
You're encouraged not to click on Continue Reading so that you don't have to waste another second of your valuable time reading more of them.
Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says "dam!".
A sandwich walks into a bar. The barman says, "Sorry, we don't serve food in here."
A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says: "A beer please, and one for the road."
"Doc, I can't stop singing 'The green, green grass of home'." "That sounds like Tom Jones syndrome." "Is it common?" "It's not unusual."
Two cows standing next to each other in a field, Daisy says to Dolly: "I was artificially inseminated this morning." "I don't believe you," said Dolly. "It's true, no bull!"
A guy walks into the psychiatrist wearing only Glad Wrap shorts. The shrink says, "Well, I can clearly see you're nuts."
Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says, "I've lost my electron." The other says, "Are you sure?" The first replies, "Yes, I'm positive."
A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet and says, "My dog's cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him? "Well," says the vet, "let's have a look at him". So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes, then checks his teeth. Finally, he says "I'm going to have to put him down." "What? Because he's cross-eyed?" "No, because he's really heavy."
Bruce wants Gmail. (Google owns Blogger and is letting some active users test the beta version of Gmail.)
And how to report Ron Atkinson's racism if you're in Trinidad and Tobago.
Not office safe at all, unless you work in the White House.
Build your own Bush speech.
Chomsky: I think the Hobbits are criminals, essentially.
In finding Noam Chomsky's new weblog of sorts, Back Seat Drivers also found this spoof Lord of the Rings commentary by Chomsky and Howard Zinn.
To their minds, it was clearly a big pipeweed smuggling ring.
And I¡Çm like, Mary [Magdalene], are you dating Jesus? and she says, no, he's just helping me, and I¡Çm like, you mean with math? and she's like, no, to not be such a whore. And I said, but that is so incredibly sweet, and we both screamed and talked about whether we like him better when he's healing the lame or with a ponytail.
After Sartre's Cookbook, we've got another fake journal, this time the Gospel of Debbie.
(via Jennifer)
Popped into the toilets in Tameike Sannou Station last night for a leak before getting the train home from work.
Was pretty surprised to see they've installed TV monitors above every urinal. Your own personal urinal TV screen, showering you with a stream of steaming advertising as you consult with the urinal on more important matters.
The particular ad my toilet monitor was showing when I was doing my proverbial business had "Yes" and "No" touch-screen buttons on it. I thought they were real and pressed "Yes."
What a plonker. Thinking they'd install interactive touch-screen monitors above a urinal...
Central Asia watchers will remember that when the Taliban took Kabul, they decreed that all government employees in Afghanistan must grow a beard within six weeks. Pretty reasonable, I hear you say. Six weeks is plenty of time to get a good beard going for most civil servants.
No doubt inspired by the innovative national facial hair policies of his Afghan neighbours, Turkmenistan President Saparmurat Niyazov has taken the smig debate up a notch—by passing a law banning beards of all shapes and sizes. Niyazov—not bearded himself—was, rightly you must say, alarmed at the number of goatees sprouting up in the capital Ashgabat.
Niyazov's incisive move ensures the shaving debate will continue to rage west of the Caspian. For good measure and with more than a tip of the hat to the former rulers of Kabul, the main Turkman also decided to pull the plug on ballet and opera, which are unnecessary.
The Economist: Fashion Police (scroll down)
BBC News: Young Turkmen Face Beard Ban
And some classic 18th century satire online: A Modest Proposal, Candide
...going to dictionary.com and looking up "dictionary" instead of the word you went there to check.
(At least I hope it's just sleepiness!)
The passageway out of the Oedo Line in Iidabashi Station has a big pole near the escalators. I'm sure people have walked straight into it, probably at speed. It's the kind of thing I do myself.
They've put a sign on it now--on the actual pole. It reads "Watch out for the pole."
On the actual pole.
... is apparently up for auction on eBay.
[via Boing Boing, the treasure trove of the zany and absurd]
As I was standing on my balcony this morning, taking in my swimming towel from the line, I saw the old guy from across the street emerge from his house in his suit and overcoat and stand in the middle of the road, hands on hips, waiting.
Shortly after, his aproned wife appeared, her back hunched, a dishcloth in one hand and an umbrella in the other.
As he stood there watching, she wiped the saddle of his push-bike, unlocked it, took off the stand, turned it around and rolled it out to him, gave him the umbrella and then went back, presumably, to the kitchen.
Still working on the omelet. There have been stumbling blocks. I keep creating omelets one after another, like soldiers marching into the sea, but each one seems empty, hollow, like stone. I want to create an omelet that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, and instead they taste like cheese.
Old J.P. Sartre is just as easy a target as Kim Jong-il or Dubya.
[via Jennifer]
Very funny piece by gme.jp about the Japanese tendency to pixellate things and, well...chickens.
And we thought Tokyo had the wackiest Mayor/Governor in the World.
What about New York?
(via Boing Boing)
Barschak, who is from Golders Green, north London, denied criminal damage, claiming he was "creating a work of art".
The gatecrasher of Prince William's birthday party has been at it again.
"We deeply regret this incident, which should never have happened," said Masafumi Yoshino, a senior official at the hospital.
So, "sorry" and a deep bow works even for this?
