''We are not amused''...

Just when you thought so-called ''performance art'' could get much stranger along comes someone to prove you wrong:
Artist eats corgi in royal fox protest stunt
And the guy is British! Did he go to a Chinese restraunt for the recipe?
Money quote time:

McGowan said the dog, which died at a breeding farm, tasted "really, really disgusting," and added that [Yoko] Ono "looked a bit strange" as she also tasted the dog.

Dude, she's always looked a bit strange. But it's her concept of ''music'' that's ''really, really disgusting''...

Like we don't have enough problems...

Popped over to The Register to see what's up lately and found this: Florida battles rats the size of cats. Talking about Gambian Pouched Rats. They were imported to be sold as pets.
NIIIIICE, Like we don't have enough rats here already! Uncle Sam did get off his duff and banned further importation of them thankfully! (did I mention they spread monkeypox?)
Not seen any here, they're down in The Keys (so far). But like the walking catfish, trust me, they'll spread. BTW, walking catfish ARE here, and yes, they CAN breathe air. So it's not enough to merely catch them to kill 'em you have to snuff them after you land 'em! (and they don't taste any different than any other wild catfish)
Figured I'd better know what they look like when they start showing up here:

They're big ugly suckers aren't they? So what will I do when they start showing up here? Same as any other rat, pop a clip of ratshot into the 'ol .22 and pop 'em of course.
Then I clicked on the Comments link in the article and saw some rather interesting ones.
Like this:

dinner-based solution to rat problem...
By Gerald
Posted Friday 25th May 2007 15:10 GMT

Curious, I googled for a picture of one of these rats - one of the first pictures was this one:

http://www.grist.org/etc/gristlist/2007/01/12/cuy-asado_180.jpg

yum! and a leg for everyone at Christmas...

Gerald Morgan

MD

ReadyPeople IT Recruitment

(having some rare Friday-PM downtime!)

Probably tastes like squirrel, tough and gamey.
And found some rather unsettling ones like this:

Moral dilemma
By Mike Richards
Posted Friday 25th May 2007 15:29 GMT

We can only save one - but which one? Giant plague-ridden marsupial rats from Gambia (a story for which the world is not yet prepared) or the bug-infested, torrid, swampy, banana republic known as Florida?

Nuke it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure.

HA, HA, HA, very funny dude. Tell me, where does the UK launch IT'S spacecraft from?
Ooooh sorry, I forgot. The UK doesn't do that sort of thing. But that's OK, we do.
And this one:

But Then Again!
By heystoopid
Posted Saturday 26th May 2007 08:33 GMT

But then again ! , it's only Florida , and who gives a rats breakfast about them weirdo's that live there!

But when global warming finally kicks in , the conveyer belt dies and the seas rise seven metres or so , end of problem! , as most of what is Florida today will be under water!

As Nelson would say Ha! Ha!

The poster's name 'heystoopid' and his spelling of 'weirdo's' says it all.
UPDATE: http://www.theregister.co.uk/ hails from Britain and does like to bash FL whenever it can. But guess who's eagerly buying real estate here?
I guess Paul Revere was right...

Comments on comments

Looks like Steven is diving fully into the realm of blogging again:

20070518.1950: Well, what the heck. I started messing around with a blog on Pixy's site. I just made it unhidden. So far it's just test posts, but I'm thinking of running a sort of hybrid, where TMWs and reviews would remain on this server, but day-to-day posts would go over there. That would, at long last, give people things they could link to, and it would also permit comments. I say that last with great trepidation, but it's worth experimenting with. What the hell.

As you might notice, I permit comments here. On this post and any other. I discourage swearing but feel free to say whatever you'd like there. In a previous post I mentioned that I (ab)use Blogger as a blog host. I'm basically a cheapskate and free is my favorite price. I don't have a problem letting Google ''do the heavy lifting'' for either of my blogs.
With one exception of course; The comment system. I won't hesitate to say it, Blogger's comment system sucks out loud. It's truly awful, there are folks that won't even post a comment on blogs that use it. I tend to avoid using Blogger's comment system whenever possible myself, it's truly that bad, it makes people jump through a lot of hoops just to give their 2 cents worth.
Myself, I recommend HaloScan. It's uptime history is decent (99%), it can be easily integrated into any blog format (including Blogger), it's free (they sell ad space there, which I have no problem with) and I've never seen 'comment spam' there. That's right, never. And I've used it for over a year now (and others longer) and it doesn't force people to jump through hoops to post comments. It remembers commenters ON ANY blog that uses it. For example, pop over to Bane Rants and tell him off. Then come here and tell me off (Yes, this blog looks like his. And he knows it). Your ''name'', email addy (does not appear in comment) and URL (which if you choose to provide one, does appear) comes with you. No 'comment spam', no captcha, and it just works.
Good enough for me...

Time for more celeb-bashing fun...

Stopped by the MyEMBARQ™ homepage and saw a news item that deserves to be picked on:
Manson's Failed Marriage `Destroyed' Him

NEW YORK (AP) — Marilyn Manson says he was devastated over the breakup of his marriage to model and burlesque dancer [translation: stripper] Dita Von Teese.

"I was completely destroyed. I had no soul left," [Um, MM, didn't you sell that to Satan already? Just curious] the 38-year-old glitzy goth rocker [I'll buy the ''goth'' part but not the ''glitzy'' or ''rocker''] says in Spin magazine's June issue, on newsstands May 29. "I define myself as a person, a human, an artist, as someone who makes things — writing, painting, music — and I couldn't do anything." [MM, you just barely qualify as a human. Deal with that, OK?]

Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, married Von Teese in November 2005. She filed for divorce last December. [and who doesn't love those tales of showbiz romance? C'mon, it lasted a whole year!]

"She said she had tolerated the lifestyle because she hoped I would change and threatened to leave if I didn't," Manson says. [a stripper couldn't handle living with that freak? What, did she think it would have the breast implants removed? Would she have removed hers for it?]

"I was sleeping on the couch in my own home. [that pretty much defines the word pathetic] I was no longer supposed to be a rock star. [it was supposed to be a rock star? I call BS on that one] I was someone who had to be apologized for. [Ding! Ding! Ding! Bold and italics mine. That tiny little nugget of wisdom is what people like me call ''the money quote''] I wasn't prepared to be alone. I came out of this naked, a featherless bird." [Um, yeah, whatever]

His outlook changed when his friendship with 19-year-old actress Evan Rachel Wood turned romantic. [could be worse, at least it's into (the word ''romantic'' means the word ''into'' should be taken literally) teenage girls. That does make it superior to michael jack-son] He tells the magazine he was impressed when she said she would die for him. [considering she's a seriously messed-up chickie, it's quite likely she means it. Future life expectancy: 18 months]

"It might sound strange, but this made me want to live," [Nahh, doesn't sound strange at all. It's (legally) banging a teenage girl like a screen door! Sounds like a reason to live to me] he says.

Wood, whose screen credits include "Thirteen" and "Running With Scissors," was quoted in the story as saying, "Boys in eye makeup are the greatest thing ever — that whole androgynous thing." [Ding! Ding! Ding! That would be ''money quote'' number two! I see a stint in rehab in her future. Or dead before age 21, flip a coin]

Manson's new album, "Eat Me, Drink Me," is slated for release June 5. [and MY new CD, ''BITE ME!'' is slated for release June 6^th]

I hope Sony Records is his label. Anyone that buys any of it's ''albums'' deserves the free rootkit included! I've heard it's so-called ''music'' and take my word for it, DON'T DOWNLOAD IT! It's just not worth the meager effort to do so!
Don't waste your hard drive space on it...

You never know where the internet will take you...

Paid a visit to Chizumatic just now. And found this:

20070517.2355: These are really cool: Zoomquilt and Zoomquilt2. Some (well, a lot) of the art is pretty eerie, but it's a neat idea and executed well.

I clicked the Zoomquilt link and got a 404 page from a company that many people have never heard of: EMBARQ. In certain locations it's the post-Sprint/Verizon merger name.
That's why I recognized the name right away, they send me the landline/DSL bill every month and it's promptly paid (They have indeed provided me with excellent service).
When I clicked on the ''Why am I here?'' link on that 404 page it lead me to the customer service page. It didn't really explain why I got that 404 page but it did tell me that they have quit contracting Earthlink for ISP services and are now doing their own. A pleasant surprise indeed, I quit using Earthlink for email due to poor service and had to go to yahoo mail and all the handicaps that 'free email' entails (like no POP/SMTP and lousy spam filtering).
I'll giving EMBARQ's email the beta run [qwikhitz AT embarqmail DOT com] and I'll let you know how it goes.
UPDATE: I did indeed check out Zoomquilt2 (that link worked fine). If you like trippy, Eicher/Daliesque art (as I do) it's well worth a visit.
UPDATE II: Not all of us have a desire to DIY when it comes to blog hosting Steven:

20070516.1100: Hold on there, pardner! Bob's blogspot blog is gone, which is unfortunate. But the Blogspot 404 page that comes up is in Japanese, which is extraordinary! (Did Virginia become part of Japan without my noticing?)

UPDATE: Bob writes:

Blog's not gone. Google, for some reason, flagged it as a 'Spam Blog'. I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion, but there were a bunch of verification steps I had to fill out to get it reactivated. I'm told it should be back up within 24 hours. Perhaps I should rethink hosting it there. I'm not too fond of their v2 Blooger engine, which makes formatting posts very time consuming (IMO) - one thing I do not have in abundance.

Blogspot is a lot like training wheels for a bicycle. A lot of people find out about blogging and decide they want to try it. They may make a few posts, and then lose interest in it. Blogspot is a good place for someone to try blogging out, but if they turn out to be serious and to really want to keep it up, then they should move on, because in the long run Blogspot is worth what you're paying to use it.

And we still don't have an explanation for why Google decided to replace Bob's blog with a 404 page written in Japanese.

I've seen Google put blogs ''under review'', to me it looks like they're doing some ''housecleaning''.
They've not bothered either of my blogs (as of this writing) which is rather surprising.
Apparently they consider removing the ''Blogger Bar'' at the top and replacing the address bar icon with one of my own is not a problem to them. Nor do they FORCE advertising on me. They encourage me to run ads but they allow me the option to decline them.
As far as the Blogger 404 page in Japanese is concerned, I'm as baffled as he is. They have an English-language 404 page after all...

Well at least he didn't beat up a transvestite...

Welcome to another episode of ''Former child stars - where are they now?''
Remember Married...With Children? Meet the newest member of the washed-up child star club;

David Faustino, AKA 'Bud Bundy'. After bopping over to IMDB, it turns out he's still an actor and doing movies! Some of his starring roles include Puff, Puff, Pass ('06), High Hopes ('05) and of course, Killer Bud ('01).
He was New Smyrna Beach, drunk and fighting with his ex when the cops show up. And guess what they find in his pocket? I expect a very bright future for this up-and-coming actor...

The Twilight Zone is real...

It's Japan:

A 'Virtual Dog-Walking' videogame (NO, NOT dog wokking, the Japanese prefer seafood).
I admit, I'm not a ''dog person''. I'm a ''cat person'' so I don't know if this is pathetic or merely surreal. But the idea of dropping a coin in a coin slot to walk on a treadmill ''walking'' a ''dog'' makes no sense to me.
There IS a way to make this game worthwhile however, turn it into Pokemon on steroids.
Make the dog ''a ''virtual pit bull'' and instead of trying to prevent ''Fido'' from harm, you ''battle'' it!!!
I can even see an advertising tie-in here!!! Your ''avatar'' dog is:

THE TARGET DOG!!! For those playing along at home that would be the one on the left.
You begin the game calmly walking ''Target'', until you happen to come across a battle. Then it goes to Dog vs. Opponent. In true Mortal Combat style.
You're likely thinking ''OK, so it's Pokemon with a pit bull as a 'monster', SO WHAT?!?!?''
Look at the 1^st photo, the actual player is on an actual treadmill. USE THAT!!!
The treadmill is your only way to restore 'health' to your 'avatar' dog. At the beginning of the game a few steps forward by the player will be enough to fully recharge 'avatar'.
During ''the final showdown'' the player will have to run like hell on that treadmill just to keep 'avatar' ''alive''...