Two different things

Mullet Tossing and tossers with mullets.

Use the keyboard, Luke!

Are you an old-school geek who thinks that mice, icons, icons and pretty much anything but a keyboard and monochrome monitor are for sissies? Then you're gonna love Star Wars ASCIImation.

No you don't have to shake the screen

Online Etch-A-Sketch!

"At the Gas Station of Love, I Got the Self Service Pump"

...and lots of other Really Bad Country Song Titles.

Have a quintillion pennies, leave a quintillion pennies

Do you know what a thousand pennies looks like? How about a hundred thousand? How many pennies would it take to fill up the Sears tower? The MegaPenny Project knows. Start here with one penny and go from there.

Terminal boredom

There's been a man stuck in a Paris airport since 1988.

George gets around

Wondering where all your money goes? Find out.

Survivor?, that's for wimps!

It ain't got nothin' on Nasubi, who spent 15 months locked naked in a Japanese apartment and was told he couldn't leave until he had won one million yen. It was part of a Japanese game show called Denpa Shonen. Nasubi had to acquire everything (including food) by sending in postcards and winning contests. Read his amazing story here.

Orrin, dude! You're head is like totally melting!

Get 'em! Trade 'em! Drop acid and vote for 'em! It's Psychedelic Republicans!

A faggot says what?

Nothing, you silly! Faggots can't talk! And Mr. Brains is no mass murderer, even if he does have a freezer stuffed full of faggots.

Finally, say hello to "The Faggot Family", a brood of "faggot fanatics" chosen in a nationwide contest to represent Mr. Brain's Faggots! I guess when you have their last name, you really don't have all that much to lose, pride-wise.

"Always the bridesmaid, never a good dress"

Remember when you were a bridesmaid in your best friend's wedding? Remember the dress? You probably hated it, right? Big poofy sleeves, with an enormous ass-widening bow on the back perhaps? Don't feel bad, you were in good company.

Don't laugh, brides. You can get pretty bad, too.

Hello? Is your refrigerator running?

A collection of not-all-that-funny phone gags is here. Check it out if you want, but the only one I really thought was great was this one:


Every now and then we are all pestered by these high-tech telemarketing companies where the sales pitch is usually disguised as a survey of some kind. The despicable thing about these things is that they won't leave you alone. If you hang up, they will just call back again.



One day my wife got a call from one of these computer systems, and her answering machine answered. The conversation that followed was hilarious, as it consisted of two machines talking to each other without having the slightest idea about what each other was saying. The conversation wound up in an endless loop, as follows:



[PHONE] *RING*



[ANSWERING MACHINE] "...At the tone, please give your message.
BEEEEEP."



[PHONE] "Hello. This is [company_name], and we are taking a telephone survey ... when I ask a question, wait for the beep, then please speak plainly. I will repeat your answer back to you, and verify it. First, what is your phone number? BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."



(The answering machine, upon hearing the beep, got confused and thought it was a play-back command, and generated another beep in response.)



[ANSWERING MACHINE] "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."



[PHONE] "Thank you! Your phone number was 443-28347-47756-377764-22222.
Is that correct? BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."



[ANSWERING MACHINE] "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."




[PHONE] "Thank you! Do you have any children? BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."



[ANSWERING MACHINE] "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."



[PHONE] Thank you! What is the age of your first child? BEEEEEEEEEEP."



[ANSWERING MACHINE] "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."



[PHONE] "Your first child is 1,222 years old. Is that correct?
BEEEEEP."



[ANSWERING MACHINE] "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."



[--------------- BEGIN ENDLESS LOOP ----------------]



[PHONE] "Thank you! Do you have any more children? BEEEEEEP."




[ANSWERING MACHINE] "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."



[PHONE] "Thank you! What is this child's age? BEEEP."



[ANSWERING MACHINE] "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."



[PHONE] "This child is 4,233 years old. Is that correct? BEEEEP."



[ANSWERING MACHINE] "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP."



[---------------------END LOOP -----------------------]



My wife, upon noticing that the answering machine had been going for over half an hour, turned up the volume to find out what was going on. When she discovered this endless loop (by now she had over 200 children, all over 1,000 years old), she switched off the answering machine. The computer never called again.

Thrift store album covers

Will at Show and Tell Music has an incredible collection of odd, funny, beautiful and strange album covers that he's picked up over the years, and he'd like to share them with you. Check out the galleries here and here!

Keyboardus Erectus

Imagine a run-of-mill QWERTY keyboard--got it pictured in your mind? Now break it in half and stand both pieces up vertically, facing in opposite directions (with keys out). Finally place the number pad in between, and a couple of mirrors around the edges. Sounds like a monster, doesn't it?

In this case, a picture is definitely worth a thousand words. [Scroll down a bit in the article to see the pic. Click on it for a better view]

If you're one of those trendsetters who already has the vertical keyboard, you might as go for the Full Monty and get the vertical mouse as well, don't you think?
(Via ExtremeTech)

Gender-Specific Humor

I'll admit it, I'm a guy. And only guys would find this hilarious. End of story.

Do your eyes deceive you?

Of course! A couple of my favorites here and here. Use your illusion, indeed...

I know this job stinks, but this is ridiculous

I've seen a story circulating lately about a proofreader in a publishing firm who sat dead in his chair unnoticed by his coworkers for five days. Great story, but the bad news is, it's not true. Check out the latest urban legends in the making, as well as the old classics at Snopes and Truth Or Fiction

What's That Noise?

Here's the playlist for my "Captnkurt's Big Cover-Up Show" (three hours of just cover songs) on WYCE from 4/12/03.

Gentlemen, start your barstools!

Ah, spring is here, and that can only mean one thing. Bar stool racing. You can read about one of the first prototypes by "The Godfather of Bar Stool Racing", Ken Lowe.

You Saw "Back To The Future III HOW many times??!

This bizarre story from Yahoo! TV. Guy who claims to be from the future turned his $800 initial investment into a $350 million portfolio in two weeks time.

Peeps to the nth power

Cute and delicious springtime icon? Or nasty-tasting, indestructible hellspawn of the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man? Check out the Big List Of Peeps Links and click away.

Peeps too tame for you? For the Extreme Candy Eater, there's always The Bad Candy Page. [NOTE: This is the old version of Bad Candy. Check here for the hopefully soon-to-be functioning new and improved Bad Candy website]

More bad candy can be found at the Candies We Hate page brought to you by Meg's Toybox.

Guess who's not getting a basket this year?

This guy.

Fired from the orange juice factory...

...because you couldn't concentrate? (ba-dum-bing!) Play this or this and call me in the morning. (Thanks, Bonnie!)

Windshield Mass Hysteria

Consider the interesting Mystery Of Seattle's Pitted Windshields. It's a great story of how a little paranoia and a whole lot of hype can make a mountain out of a molehill. Or in this case, a crater out of a ding. (Via HistoryLink)

Run Richard, Run!

Sure, you could join one of those fantasy sports leagues. Pretend you're running an NBA team with Yao Ming, Michael Jordan and, uh... Meadowlark Lemon.

Pfah! For sissies, I say!

Why not play a game with a little more at stake? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Fantasy Fugitive Recovery.

Once you play FFR, you're never gonna go back to sweating over whether your league's Barry Bonds will have more homers than, umm... Meadowlark Lemon. Instead you're gonna be tracking escaped convicts, and getting points when one of your guys gets captured. The longer they've been on the run, the more points they're worth. Here's the Master List page and the Rules page. Basically, you pick your six guys (plus three alternates in case some of yours were already picked by someone else) and email your picks and team name into the guys at FFR.

Play ball!

PS. The headline refers to Richard Scott, who holds the honor of being FFR's longest-running fugitive. He escaped in 1947 and is still considered at large.

Chevelle! Chevelle!

Until now, the only time I've ever heard these words shouted out with this much enthusiasm was when I was crossing the street and didn't see that oncoming car. This and other hip audio resurrected thanks to Basic Hip Digital Oddio.

Put A Little Love In Your Heart.
And A Little Cotton In Your Ears

TV Stars who insist on singing.

(Via April Winchell)

Dumb Things I Gotta Do Today
1. Laundry
2. Call Mark about buying his 10-speed
3. Take over world

Got big plans? That's fine, just don't make the same mistakes everyone else does.

Oh, and don't forget to stock up! Perhaps you need a new Kryozap 6000 Super Freeze Ray, a Zombification System, or maybe just in the market for an old-fashioned Bottomless Pit? They're all here at VillainSupply.com!

I'll stick to melon balls, thanks

True, there's worse stuff on Fear Factor every week, but the folks attending Reno's 12th Annual Mountain Oyster Fry actually pay to eat this stuff. I like the pic. You can't tell me that kid's not gonna be scarred for life.

And if you're still hankerin' for more innards-goodness, don't forget to clear your calendar for Gizzard Fest! It's Gizzard-licious!

Paging Goober Holder

Hate your name because it's dumb-sounding? Buck up, it could be worse.

Goober Holder? Check out February 20, 2003.

The First Time...

...Ever I Saw Your Face

Have An Idea, Leave An Idea...

You know the penny tray up at the counter of most stores? Short a couple of cents? Don't want 98 cents worth of change to carry around from your $4.02 purchase? So you grab a couple of pennies from the tray to make life easier.

Conversely, got a copper or two back in change? Donate 'em to the tray! It's a give-and-take that doesn't cost much and makes life run a tiny bit smoother.

Now what if you took the Penny Tray Concept and applied it to ideas and inventions? That's where sites like Creativity Pool, ShouldExist and halfbakery.com come into play.

Got wonderful ideas to make life a little bit easier? They don't have to be biggies like the cure for cancer or how to ensure world peace. Maybe it's just an idea on how to automatically pair up your socks out of the laundry. You know, the good stuff.

Leggo My Lagos!

REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

(URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL) RE: TRANSFER OF ($26,000.000.00 USD} TWENTY SIX MILLION DOLLARS

consider honestly(bank of africa)

If you have a pulse and an email inbox, you've probably gotten at least one, and probably dozens or more of these urgent "business proposals". Usually the sender is some unfortunate banker, son of a dead military officer, widow of a recently deposed African ruler or the like, who wants to make you the financial deal of a lifetime. As the geniuses at Scam o Rama explain:

Translated painfully into plain English, the writer claims to be in a position to skim public accounts. Hint: There is no money to be laundered - except yours. They tell you palms must be greased. They ask for money with which to do the greasing. A few K here, a few K there... eventually you get wise, and retire to lick your wounds. Variations include son of dead military officer, son of dead farmer, dead bank customer, reformed murderer, the imaginary request for bid, different countries (Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Togo...). Same scam.

With me so far? Good. Now here's where the genius part comes in... These guys not only reply to the Nigerian scammers, they string them along. They play them like a Stradivarius. They make the scammer send them money.

Like I said. Genius.

In the same vein, I came across The Chaos Project today. The same concept, (they call it Nigerian Scam Baiting), and perhaps a bit easier to read, since the various emails are color-coded to differentiate between the fraudster and the victim's messages.

Happy reading!

PS. Re: the title of this post. Lagos is a city in Nigeria, for those of you that cut Geography class in school.

Frampton Comes Alive...

...others aren't so lucky.

All the biggies are here, AIDS, plane crashes, OD's, and of course farming.

A Simple Plan

Yes, this may be a slow download, but it is so worth it...

[UPDATE April 14, 2003]: The Honda Accord ad referred to above is even more impressive in that it used no computer-generated or "trick" photography. If you think the download for this is time-consuming, filming it took 606 takes! Story here. (Via The Daily Telegraph)

The First Rule Of Handlebar Club Is...

You do not talk about Handlebar Club.

The second rule of Handlebar Club is...

Do not stare at the guys in Handlebar Club.

What's That Noise?

Here's the playlist for my show today on WYCE.

All your base are under arrest

It all started out because of a crappy translation in a Japanese video game.

It all ended up with seven people thrown in jail.

Maybe in your travels through the 'net, you've come across the phrase "All Your Base Are Belong To Us". Maybe not. But ask any geek worth their salt, and they'll tell you. "All Your Base..." (sometimes simply referred to as AYB) was a big, no, BIG phenomenon in early '01. Don't believe me? Check out Google's results for the phrase.

For reasons unexplained, the clumsily translated text from an outdated Japanese video game called Zero Wing drew the fascination of geeks worldwide. In early 2001 it reached some kind of a critical mass and soon there were entire websites devoted to AYB, complete with various bands performing "All Your Base" songs.

Of course, it's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye, as Mom always told us. On Tuesday (April Fools Day, natch) some kids in Sturgis, MI took things a step too far, I guess.

Can't get enough of that bad translation stuff? Check out Engrish.

I used to believe...

From dan0:

I believed that one was born with a perfect sphere of booger-material at the top of each nostril. Each nose-picking whittled away at these spheres. I don't remember whether or not I thought these spheres served any purpose, but I recall lying on the floor at nap-time in pre-school with my finger up my nose thinking I'd have to pace myself if I wanted any left when I became an adult.

Sure, you're laughing now, but what weird stuff did you believe when you were a kid?

Putting the Hurl back in the URL

Sure, dieting is tough. But it could be worse. You could have been on Weight Watchers in 1974.

(Via Wendy)

It's the Bluebeard Zoo Crew!

Net radio had a close call last summer. The US Copyright Office was going to force webcasters to pay the record labels royalties of 70 cents a song for every thousand listeners. Lots of web stations, which are often just little one-person operations run out of someone's basement with virtually no budget whatsoever, were facing thousands of dollars a month in royalty fees, plus thousands more in back-royalties, since the fees were retroactive back to as far back as 1998.

Since then, while the royalty fee pricing structure has eased somewhat, there are still smaller webcasters who can't or won't pay the fees. One alternative is peer-to-peer pirate radio, and how anyone with a PC and a 56-Kbps connection can become a pirate jock.

(Via Wired Magazine)

Radio, Radio

I volunteer my time to do a radio show on our local independent community station, WYCE 88.1 FM. It's a great little non-commercial station with an eclectic format. The tagline is "Folk, Blues, Jazz, Rock and Worldbeat. All in one place." Since it's non-commercial, (we get almost all of our funding from the two listener fund drives we hold every year.

Here is a list of some of the music that's newly arrived into the station, so you might get a general idea of what we sound like.

Anyway, I do a little 3-hour music show once a week, along with 50 or so other programmers. (We prefer the term "programmers" to "DJs" or "jocks". We really do try and put thought into each music choice we make, as opposed to just mindlessly spinning the Top 40/20/10 Massive Music Hits.) I go by the name Capt'n Kurt, and I play radio Saturdays 3-6 pm EST. Give a listen sometime, even if it's not during my show! (You will need a free RealOne Player to hear it.)

Once a year I do this thing I call "Capt'n Kurt's Big Cover-Up Show". This is where I play an entire show (about 40 or so tunes) of cover songs, and this year it'll be on Saturday 4/12 from 3-6 pm EST. It's a lot of fun! I used to play a lot of goofy/funny stuff like Dread Zeppelin, or William Shatner doing "Mr. Tambourine Man" (must be heard to be believed). But lately I've gotten away from the novelty stuff. You might be surprised at the amount of cover songs there are out there! For example, Tori Amos does a version of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Bluesman Harry Manx does a jazzy rendition of The Doobie Brothers "Takin' It To The Streets".

Got something you'd want to hear? Give a call to (616)742-WYCE.

Nightmare Fuel

The good folks at Lileks have brought us some scarifying Vitamin propaganda from the past.

Who's hungry??