How to make your own hooves

That's it. How to make your own hooves. You know. Hooves.

Steve, Don't Eat It

When I was first taken to the Main Street Market, on 42nd and Main in Spfld, Or (pronounced Spuffledor) I must admit some of the products scared me a tad. I wanted to try them, but I just bottled it.

Looks like I did the right thing, as the aforementioned Steve is sampling all those products on our behalf.

Good man. Let's have a whipround for his medical bills.

Cripes

A mindboggling piece of maths here. Someone's taken the doctrine of transubstantiation and done the maths to work out how big Jesus would have to be to supply that much blood and flesh.

Suffice to say, He's very big indeed.

Lonely hearts-a-rama

Right. So St Paul, Minnesota is a no-no. We decided that the other night, didn't we? You decide to advertise instead. But where? First of all, how's about the London Review of Books? Witty, erudite and oh, so arch.

Failing that, how's about a favourite freak show over at Sp3ccylad towers? The Eugene Weekly's Alternatives column? It'll fair take your breath away in places. There are some funny people out there, I tell you. For a slightly gentler slice of Eugenean life scoll up the page to "i saw u". There's the odd "aaaah" there.

Go on, softies. Take a look.

I don't fancy yours much

It's a rough life in Minnesota. You're a tad too close to Canada for comfort and it's bloody cold in winter. Well, you have Prince. That's something.

However, have special pity in your hearts for the citizens of St Paul. Not only do they have to turn away loads of pilgrims in purple ("No, he lived in Minneapolis. That's next door. Sorry."), but their prostitutes are well nasty*. Check out these photos from the police dept for details. They start kind of OK and just degenerate.

*Sp3ccylad is reminded of a time when he lost the keys to his bike lock somewhere in downtown Springfield (Cycling! How Oregon!). Whilst looking for them, he passed by a woman who seemed to spend a lot of time on the same corner just off of 5th and Main. As he passed her (repeatedly, scouring the ground for dropped keys) he said "hi", mainly because he thought she deserved some human contact that wasn't a business transaction, she seemed a nice kind of person, and she didn't seem to be there because she liked it. A few weeks later, the wife and I were down at Grocery Outlet on South 14th (Look, I know that place is icky and cheap but it's the only place in Springfield where you could reliably get custard cream biscuits), when a woman joined the queue at the checkout behind us. Youngish, quite pretty and struggling unaided with a rather grumpy toddler who seemed overdue for a nap. She smiled embarrassedly like mothers do as the toddler got more and more fractious; then she seemed to recognise me and said "hi." Absent-mindedly, I returned the greeting. "Who's that?" asked wifey. "Oh, blimey," I said. "I don't know. You know my memory for names and faces..." About three minutes later, as we left the store, I brightened up as I had a eureka moment... "Oh! Yes! I re-mem-ber! She's a prostitute!" I said, rather naively, and sounding slightly too pleased with myself for remembering. The resultant explanation was at least as long as this footnote. Probably longer, knowing me.

A moonwalking bird

Oh, yes. Exactly what it says on the tin.

I'm as childish as hell, but...

I challenge you to try and read this article without at least smirking.

It's the word "squat" that gets me every time.

They'll run me out of Grantham next time I visit. That much I'm sure of.

Penguins. The new peril in the air.

So consider yourself lucky the goons at Denver International Airport decided to shake down the shifty, flightless bastards.

It's nice to know we're always one step ahead of international terrorists.

No link here

I just want to hurt your brain.

Home of the crocheted vulva

Waah! I'm scared!

Recruiting the A-Team

Using Craig's List and a well-thought out questionnaire.

So - what do you think?

OK, Brits (both of you) - have a crack at this. It's not one of those tiresome sites that says "you think this, therefore you should be voting this way" - it simply assesses your views on a number of key issues and presents those views as a comparison to the rest of the country. Oddly interesting, considering that this is the dullest election campaign I can remember (and goodness knows I've got a long memory).

For the record, these are my results. Oh, like you care.

Actually, if you do care what I think (why?) then why not post a link to your results in the comments?

More of teh crasy Engrish

And this is quite fantastic:

"No matter men and women,old and young, it is unavoidable to want and wash hair for everyone to avoid, finish washing after the hair each time, Wet hair glue at hair really feels a paining , especially cold winter, That wet long hair of lady liking to be beautiful is extremely easy to get the clothes of the back wet, Very apt to cause the cold and headache, is this reason if women wash hair prudently in pregnant and menstrual period."

See?

Yay!

Sweaty knackers? Sweaty no more.

Flick The Bean

This is not as exciting as many of my readers will have hoped.

Eh, ladies?

A celebration of non-penetration.

This is bad and I've only just finished wiping the tears from my eyes. Those lovely people from Abstinence Only neglected to register the web address so they got the website they deserve.

Best read at work if you hate your job and you want to get fired.

I saw the face of Oprah

in Queen Creek, AZ.

Death to all foreign sauces!

A mad Japanese animation concerning soy sauce. Oddly, the singer sounds like B3ta's ginger führer, Rob "one word from me will screw over your bandwidth" Manuel.

Frog watches lobster...

listen to Hall and Oates.

Riveting.

Cats that wish to kill...

And wouldn't you if you were dressed like this?

Quality cars, quality Engrish

I want one of these because:

"This model is for one passenger driving casually like a scooter with newly developed engine."

Excellent.

I... er... WHAT?

Here's a slice of video strangeness from Japan. What the heck are the last three seconds all about?

I like clutter

But not quite this much.

You need to buy a Mac, people

Hi. I'm one of those undead zombies recruited by the sinister Cupertino corporation to blindly spout on about any pile of rubbish produced by Apple as being the best thing since sliced beans. Yeah, but this feels a bit special.

I'm not a great fan of Nine Inch Nails. However, I was very impressed to read in the great Music Thing blog that the new NIN single has been released in GarageBand format.

So? Let me explain. What makes the current Apple range so exciting is not the hardware (although it is good) but the software - specifically iLife '05. It comes bundled with new Macs and costs £49 to buy. It's got digital photo management software, movie-making software, a DVD authoring package AND a multi-track recording studio. Yeah: FREE with a new computer.

It's idiotically simple to use. On a good day, with a bit of mental discipline and a raft of good ideas, I can finish a song on a Sunday afternoon. One Sunday I did three. A few weeks later, a bit drunk and rather tired, I threw together a few clips (I'd never edited video on a computer before) behind the second song of that rather prolific Sunday.

That video has now been downloaded over 15,000 times, and the reviews are in.

Not bad. Want more?

I'm not bragging here. Honest. It's the computer that enabled me to do all this - or, more to the point, the software. Free software so easy to use that I can have an idea and actually get it down without stress and hassle in the form I heard/saw it in my head. This is what happens when you take powerful creative software and put it in the hands of people who simply shouldn't know what they're doing. People like me and you.

For crying out loud, Daisychain took me two hours with a piece of software I'd never had the inclination to use before. You've heard the buzz surrounding Tarnation? Made with the same free software on a budget that, frankly, took the piss ($218.32, to be exact).

And that is why I am so idiotically excited about Trent Reznor's gesture for us Garageband users. "Here's my work", he's saying: "go and play."

Now here's the thing. The hardware is so cheap now that you can put together a studio for £500-£600 should you wish to. The excuses stop here. The creative divide in the future will not between can-do's and can't do's, but between simply will-do's and won't-do's.

There's a creative party going on. You coming? I dare you. Discover something.

Kids! Steer clear!

More like this here. What fun.

And OOOH! Look at all the Comic Sans!

Don't press the button

No, really. Don't.

Unintentionally sexual comic book covers: Part 1.

This needs no explanation. Just go and laugh.

The Earth Is Not Moving

Well blimey:

"The Earth is not rotating...nor is it going around the sun.
The universe is not one ten trillionth the size we are told.
Today’s cosmology fulfills an anti-Bible religious plan disguised as "science".
The whole scheme from Copernicanism to Big Bangism is a factless lie.
Those lies have planted the Truth-killing virus of evolutionism in every aspect of man’s "knowledge" about the Universe, the Earth, and Himself."

Loopers.

Abston Church of Christ

Constructed entirely from Lego, this gargantuan church gives me the hots in an odd kind of way.

Maybe I just have a thing for obsessive women, I dunno.

Fetch! Wake Up!

I shouldn't laugh, but here's a video of a dachshund with narcolepsy.

Pffft.

Stuff from the dollar store

I love dollar stores. They're like pound shops, but 47% cheaper. Buy enough shit and you'll recoup your airfare. At this point, I'd like to offer a big shout out to Dollar Tree at 2090 Olympic in Springfield, OR* - purveyors of cheap ibuprofen to the hungover and arthritic at only $1 (duh!) a bottle.

Anyway: The Book of Ratings has reviewed a bunch of stuff from dollar stores and it's mildly diverting.

*Yay for Springfield and its stuff.

Installing Linux on a Dead Badger

I'm doing this tonight, because I can with this helpful article.

Hosting: the truth

Seems reasonable. I must give them all my money.

I like kites, and I like digital cameras

So imagine the mildly retarded noises of joy I made when I saw this fantastic piece of geekery.

Oh, yes.

Superman is a Dick.

I always suspected it. Here's the proof.

Manifest Destiny as a cheesy video

I can't watch this video without howling with laughter.

Who is this man and why would he look better with Alice Cooper's make up? And why would he sound better with Alice Cooper's talent?

Discuss.

Get your future foretold by a chihuahua

It's only $25 and she takes Paypal.

"Oh my God! There's an axe in my head."

Or how to say the aforementioned phrase in 112 languages.

You can scoff now, but you might need this one day.

An old favourite of mine

It's not new, but I love it. A recreation of Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice video using a stick figure and line drawings - which is far cheaper than Christopher Walken and the lobby of a posh hotel.

First time I saw this, I gave it a standing ovation.

Yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yiiiii.

Waaaa-heugh!

God help me - Daisychain's taken off again

Oh, blimey

The Girl Watcher - a magazine from, shall we say, the middle of the last century, is a wonderful relic of how things were when they were different. Go here - we have scans to look at. Quite embarrassing.

Ooh! Saving money!

Make design classics the cheap way by recourse to Design without Reach's fabbo recommendations.

The real meaning of names

So, so true.

There's a situation vacant...

...and I've applied.

Endangered Species,

by an 8th grader in Pittsburgh:

"Koalas have sharp claws but they are weak. They all small and fat and they be climing trees."

I know. Freeloaders.

Guess who's back? Tell your friends!

"YOU ARE CRUELTY TO CATS AND I HATE YOU"

I am what? You what?

Groovy

People who can read (and if you can't, how did you get here?) will notice I didn't post yesterday. Can you blame me? At the best of times, the internet is full of liars and charlatans*. The last thing I need is to be trolling for links on a day when people are encouraged to wind people up. So I went down the pub instead. And why not?

OK. Who is that man, and why is he waving in that frankly worrying manner?

I don't know. But he is in this video. Excruciating.

*Not you. Nor me. It's all those other bastards.