Demolish a building! Woo!

Inside every man is a teenage boy. No. That so needs rephrasing.

Let's start again.

We all have an inner teenager (that's better) and mine was awoken by this wonderful quicktime image of the demolition of the Convention Center in Charlotte, NC. Drag your mouse across the image to animate it. Shuffle from side to side and it does a wonderful dusty dance.

Gelignite-tastic.

Sexy album cover cheese shop

Oh yes. I think I just died and went to cheese heaven.

This selection of sexy album covers celebrates the art of promoting your music by putting a good looking lady on the cover - preferably scantily-clad with a come-hither look.

It's quite wonderful in a "how we used to live" way.

Communist era posters

I like these - I always have. When I was in Prague recently, the national contemporary art museum's Socialist Realism section gave me enormous pleasure. And you never know, popping over here might do the same for you.

The picture that goes with this post is chosen not for its draughtmanship but for the fact that it looks like a bloke who was a major influence on me; a man who would have been constantly mistaken for both Shakespeare and Lenin - were they not both dead, that is.

Dr. Ian Mitchell of Grantham College, I salute you.

The Wake n' Bacon alarm clock

Wake to the smell of cooked bacon. Mmm. Unsanitary.

Churchgoers explore 'the force'

Oh. Sad, this is.

18th Century Graffiti

Some things never change, and one of these immutables is the urge to scrawl things on walls for others to see. Bog House Miscellany is a collection of graffiti from the walls of 1730's London that amuses and informs by turn.

For example:

"No Hero looks so fierce in Fight,
As does the Man who strains to sh-te."

It made my morning.

Yeah Yeah F*cking Yeah

Welcome to my new song: it's very sweary, so don't listen if you don't like that kind of thing. On the other hand, if you do, then click on the image.

Then go for a lie down.

Let's make a stuffed animal

Every day. For a year. Oh yes.

Gay Batman Art

Not safe for work, unless your work has an interest in Batcock. Get an eyeful here.

LATER EDIT: I'd not long blogged this when I got a knock at the door. Twas the meter reader. Nothing wrong with that, you might say. Oh yes. We have one computer chair and a cheap Ikea jobbie that the cat uses. Our suite is outside waiting for KMC to come and pick it up. The living room has two computers, two guitars, and a MIDI keyboard strewn across it. There is no other furniture, as the new suite is yet to be delivered. It looks like a student hovel in here.

Then, just to add pain to my embarrassment, there's a picture of Batman and Robin kissing on the screen of the laptop. God only knows what the meter reader was thinking, but he didn't say it out loud.

God help me.

Words that rhyme with orange

Highly informative.

Jack Kilby, a giant among engineers, dies

None of us would know anything about each other on the web without this guy.

I'm not smug

its all gone a bit jules verne
Originally uploaded by twhume.

You know, I was a bit put out that I didn't have a ticket for Glastonbury this year.

Then it rained. Oh, crikey: did it rain. Resulting in the situation you see in the photo opposite. I'd love to see what the shroomheads are making of this. One thing: they couldn't be done for having dried ones...

Wanna see more? Then go here

It's pointless game time!

You're a bird sitting on a wall. Fruit drop from the sky. If they land on the wall, bricks fall out. You cannot cross the gaps made by the fruit. If a fruit lands on you, you will die. You only have one life. Your only hope is to eat the fruit with your long rubbery tongue.

Welcome to the world of PYORO.

Feel my joy

If you want to know how life feels for me, click here. Takes a while to load, but now you can be Sp3ccylad. Actually, I was going to say "you can be Sp3ccylad without the musical talent", but hey; spot the difference.

Homebrew Air Conditioning

Wow. Canadian student makes his own AC unit for next-to-nothing.

What a guy.

Hey: they have the same Queen as us, don't they? Isn't he eligible for some sort of honour?

Lost: dog with six legs and two penises. Answers to name of "Lucky".

I am not joking. Really.

Argh!

Scary celeb art.

Man Rescued from Mechanical Toilet

Man Rescued from Mechanical Toilet
Originally uploaded by beezly.

Not the greatest of photos; but oh, to have been there.

Yes, it is the supaloo on Market Street in Huddersfield, and yes, they are having to rescue someone from it via the roof.

Priceless.

Art Basel 36'05: a funny old place

Like I say; Art Basel is a funny old place. I was at Art 22'91. When I say "at" I'm not being strictly accurate.

I was working for an art gallery in Bradford and our application to exhibit at Art 22'91 had been turned down as we weren't flavour of the month anymore. So we fought back good and hard. We got in touch with a gallery in Basel (Galerie Goetz on Steinentorstrasse), arranged two floors' worth of exhibition space and took £500,000 worth of contemporary art over. Oh, and me. In costume. For the opening, I played a Milliganesque butler who doddered about spilling Earl Grey tea and falling down two flights of stairs. My party piece was to hassle people who didn't want tea by forgetting I'd asked them. I managed to ask one guy 15 times. It didn't make up for missing Happy Mondays playing Elland Road, but it was a giggle.

I had to do something outside Art Basel itself to bring the punters our way. It was on the other side of town at the Messe so we needed to do something spectacular. We had a newspaper printed up in German and English and I had a costume made from a design by Isabelle Craven. Gold boots, black tights, gold belt, a black top with a crest, a blue floppy hat, a red cape and an electric blue codpiece. My character was called "SuperHuman", and he was the crappiest superhero ever. No special powers; just very, very human.

Then there was the logistics. Two tram journeys each way. In costume. Twice a day. I got to the point where I would sweep onto the tram, cape flowing, and breezily greet my fellow commuters. "Good morning!" I would declaim, "Are we ready to fight evil?" The Swiss are more reticent than the British, by the way.

I would do my bit in 90˚F, sweat, go to the gallery, drink free beer and step out in the evening with a delightful young woman called Daniela who worked in an English language bookshop by day and swore like a trooper by night. She learned English in Ramsgate. Need I say more? Dani now has two kids. Funny old world.

Why do I mention this? Because at Art Basel 36'05, a bar of soap has sold for $18,000. But not just any old bar of soap. Read on.

Teenage Kicks 3000

The regular reader of this blog may remember that I took the death of John Peel rather hard. I was by no means the only one - the man informed the musical taste of a generation. Since the Peelmeister's death, a number of sites have cropped up painstakingly archiving the man's work. Teenage Kicks 3000 is but one of the crop, and I blog it just at the point when the keeper of TK3K lists the Festive Fifty for 1986. It's a festive fifty I remember well - I was a first year Drama student at the time. Peelie actually lectured his listeners for predictability - The Smiths made up seven of the fifty and four of the top ten. I remember him hitting the heights of tetchyness when he revealed the number one, threatening to knock the whole exercise on the head unless his listeners showed more imagination...

Can you imagine any media figure today both garnering such affection and acting in such a way? Such was the legend that was Peelie. What a guy.

DIY corner

Got a table saw and a baby? Well, here's a do-it-yourself project you can start this afternoon.

NO! READ THE PAGE FIRST!

Bible Sex Stories

Yes. No mysteries here. I get a very strong feeling some people won't like this. Go on. Take a peek. I won't tell.

There are some funny people out there, part 97

I love wild water rides at theme parks. In fact it's my second favourite thing at theme parks - after the exit, that is.

On the other hand, we have a bloke who's so enamoured with the whole wild water thing, that he's actually built one. In his back garden. Out of wood. And... stuff. I'm not sure I'd want to run the risk of living next door to him. I mean, this project seems pretty cool to play with, but what is the next project going to be? God help Germany if this guy ever gets an obsession with nuclear weaponry. Take a look at the pictures (which are just the right side of rubbish for maximum comic potential) here.

The amazing four-eyed cat

And I don't mean it wears glasses. Otherwise it would be sp3ccycat. Actually, that's given me an idea. In the meantime, enjoy the story of the Oregon cat born with two faces.

PS. I blogged this in bed.

It's summer! And that MUST mean ginger beer!

And vurt.co.uk has had a crack at making the stuff. It's not quite an authentic ginger beer plant, but it's quick and easy. It's all detailed here.

Intel Ins... No, I can't say it.

Intel processors in Macs. I'm still shaking my head.

And you know what gets to me the most? It's that sticker. So: how will Apple deal with the issue? Nitrozac and Snaggy have some ideas over at The Joy of Tech.

File under: scurrilous.

Wally Wise knows to go inside

Umatilla. It's a great place. The chemical dustbin of Eastern Oregon, it's where all those nasty chemicals that the US Army hold that other countries (don't actually) have are being destroyed.

Just in case your kids don't get how dangerous the US soon-to-be-destroyed WMDs are, we have the worst computer game in the world to tell them what to do in case of an emergency. Can Wally Wise avoid having his shell seared off with noxious chemicals? Will he do the right thing?

This makes the Tufty Club look sophisticated. Eep.

Casefancasefancase

Mad PC user takes cooling to insane levels.

Whoops!

Looks like somebody left a stealth bomber out for the cameras...

Security!

The messages companies give out are often at odds with the reality of their content. We all know that. Hell, I have a sister who's spent the last few years pointing that out.

Ask yourself this question. What if one of the silhouetted guys from an iPod ad actually walked into an Apple Store and did his Thing? The answer is right here in this quicktime video.

Wince along with me when he drops his iPod, won't you?

An (attempted) murder of crows

First it's cats bending our minds, now it's crows attacking. This is one of those days where a theme seems to develop. Apparently a jogger was attacked in Battersea Park by a pair of crows the other day. Now I'm not talking a little peck here: this is full on Tippi Hedren stuff.

Take a peek here for the full horror. Woah.

Cats practice mind control - FACT

My cat is taking over my brain. Well, according to this article in the Times she is.

What?

Yes. It's an iPod cover made out of chain mail. Get the full skinny at Uncle Horn Head

German city builds 'sex huts' for World Cup

Yup: that's what it said.

Out last night

Went to see this guy (on gut instinct): the I-can-happily-say-in-retrospect fantastic Duke Special. A bunch of kind, thoughtful songs delivered in a broad (but not harsh) Belfast accent with wit and style. One to watch in the future, I hope.

His website is here.

Come to that, the support acts weren't bad either. David Ford delivered a great set that featured a park bench and on-set painting (and - sad, but true - I own the painting *parp*), and I arrived during Alec Townsend's set. He's in local band Serotonin and (frankly) he surprised me with the sheer maturity of his songcraft.

A great night, and some great music.
(And no. I'm not putting an apostrophe in.)

Hello Kitty stress test

Yes. You can be psychologically analysed by a Japanese trademark with dodgy English if you click here.

Wow. Have I achieved some sort of Zen state?

Vintage Phamaceutical Ads

These are great. I mean: got a fretful child? Shove Nembutal up the little darling's arse.

More crazy drug adverts here.

Exit Mundi

What was it Robert Frost said about the end of the world? Forget it. This is the real deal. Exit Mundi is a fascinating selection of end-of-the-world scenarios that may or may not happen. Sounds gloomy? Don't you believe it. This is excellent stuff. Witty, engaging and compelling.

Matters of national security...

Matters of national security...
Originally uploaded by JodyDigger.

OK. This takes the biscuit. This road sign really says "Secret Nuclear Bunker".

I'm not entirely sure how to react to this.

Ah me. Memories.

A page full of vintage BBC radio themes.

Brought memories of sitting in front of a Pye valve radio in the kitchen with a dodgy ITT cassette recorder taping selections from Tom Browne's Top 40 show on a Sunday. My little sister had a choice recording of The Brotherhood of Man's Figaro being interrupted by my dad lamping my middle sister for gobbing phlegm in the kitchen sink. She used to dig the cassette out and we'd nearly wet ourselves laughing.

Grantham was a bit dull in those days.

Penn Jillette names daughter Moxie CrimeFighter

Best. Name. Ever.

Woah.

Boy! I say, boy! Let's buy a chicken suit!

One of the greatest humiliations I ever had in the workplace was when I dressed up as a carrot on the streets of Bradford to advertise the veggy cafe at the art gallery I was shirking in. I rapidly got a lesson in the joys of Yorkshire plain speaking. How I craved a proper job after that.

I mention that as when I navigated towards this I thought the chicken suit was something to be worn by humans: but oh, no - this is a suit for chickens:

"Austrian Edgar Honetschlaeger said he decided to work with the Japanese on the project because he hoped to make the chicken label clothing essential. He said 'It's something that you don't really need but everyone wants to have anyway'."

Clothing for chickens: for the Rhode Island Red in your life. Brian Friedkin would approve.

By the way, in a bit of a diversion (and this is SO not safe for work) I was looking through the aforementioned Mr Friedkin's site when I found some pictures of my old back garden (Brian was my next-door neighbour, and we shared a garden space). The thing is, all the pictures have a lady in advanced stages of undress, flashing pink bits everywhere.

I feel odd.

Still, it's a nice garden. It has some nice bushes, anyway.

Monkey Steals the Peach (Ninja Mind Control)

Monkey Steals the Peach (Ninja Mind Control)
Originally uploaded by Theremina.

Ow. OW! OWWW!

What is it about these ninjas, leaping around silently, stealing one's peaches?

Marvel here at this scan from a book called Ninja Mind Control, where our black-clad fighting mammal demonstrates how to stop that bloke from Dr Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex from engaging in any more pencil-sketched shenanigans in an extremely decisive manner.

Incidentally, the bit about the heart stopping is well-founded in western medicine, I am reliably informed by the resident ex-nurse (and current wife).

My testicles have retracted into my sinuses. Egad.

You Make Me Sick, too

You Make Me Sick
Originally uploaded by Erik R. Bishoff.

Absolutely priceless - May 25th, 13th and University on the UO campus in Eugene.

It's quite the list isn't it?

Maddening bouncy ball game

Say hello to POOM!, a quite insane 3D keepie-uppie game. It's well tricky.

Play it here.

Dress up Steve Jobs

Explore the Apple CEO's insanely great magic closet. It's simple, it's fun and holy crap I'm late for work.