July 29, 2005
Ruining Liver, Back Monday
I'm off to Sydney for three days.
Here's an artist's impression:
July 28, 2005
Moving Day
I'm moving desks at work....
...closer to the exit.
Woohoo! Quick getaway on Friday afternoons!
July 27, 2005
Booze is Beautiful (Ignore the Man behind the curtain!)
This article is so wrong I don't even know where to begin:
DRINKS companies have been ordered to hire uglier men for their advertisements in Britain, to avoid suggesting there is a link between boozing and sexual success.
Men who star in alcohol ads that target women should be "balding" and "paunchy" rather than "attractive and desirable", according to guidance issued by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
Come on, balding, paunchy men have "inner" beauty....
The new advertising code, launched last month, stresses that "links must not be made between alcohol and seduction, sexual activity of sexual success".
Please mummy, make the bad man stop!
Check out the catty reply from the company responsible for the ad, though:
"Perhaps the ASA people should take a look in the mirror before they decide they've got the rulebook on sexual prowess."
Ooh....ZING!!!
July 26, 2005
Doctor WHO?
Hey, they've begun filming Season 2 of the new Doctor Who.
Here's the Tenth Doctor.
Hmmm...he dresses like one of my maths lecturers at uni.
Scary!
Still, better than the damn leather jacket the previous incarnation wore.
But nothing comes close to the sheer horror and evil of the Sixth Doctor's outfit.
Mmmm....80salicious.
UPDATE: It gets the royal seal of approval.
Rock on, Liz!
Now, who's being naive?
Professor Farnsworth Voice: Good News Everyone!!
Thanks to here, we now know that:
The Church of Scientology says it is not responsible for the sores on Katie Holmes' mouth seen back in May this year.
Just in case you were wondering, that's all.
July 25, 2005
Tidbits
Rub 'er down
Thanks to the Sims, I now know that the easiest way to get someone to sleep with you is to give them twenty sequential backrubs, and then pinch them on the bottom.
I also know if you want to kill them, the best way is to build them a pool, tell them to go swimming, and then remove the ladder.
Fictional - in every way
With everyone reading Harry Potter lately, I thought I'd bring up one part of the books which has always bothered me. In Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley are desperate and dateless for their Yule Ball (since gal pall Hermione is off with Viktor Krum) and so they make do with Padma and Parvati Patil.
Now, these two are labelled the "best looking girls" in the school in the book.
So why the hell are they the sympathy dates for those two losers?
Blurry...
Watching the Sound of Music on the weekend I realised:
Man, they used a hell of a lot of vaseline on the lens in those days.
The Environmental Movement Jumps the Shark
Not work safe, by the way.
(via RWDB
July 24, 2005
Ouch
American diver Chelsea Davis was attempting a 2˝ somersault in the preliminary round of the World Diving Championships in Montreal on Friday when she slammed face-first into the board.
Davis, 17, tumbled into the pool as blood streamed from her nose and US coaching staff jumped to her aid.
However, despite the dramatic incident that shocked spectators and left several of them close to tears, Davis was still considered likely to compete in the 3m synchronised event this week.
from here.
July 23, 2005
It's Big Alright
This is a great ad...
Makes me feel kinda thirsty.
World War II.....Online
Here's what World War II would be like if played as an online real-time strategy game.
Yes, it's a geek joke. I make no apologies for that.
July 21, 2005
Not a loser, just "winning-challenged".
I bet the person who thought up this idea is probably no stranger to deferred success.
Where are they now?
Guess who this is?
Give up?
Here's the answer.
Blog and be damned!
Here's something you shouldn't really post on a blog if you happen to be a teacher:
"Today was my first day teaching course 308/722 at the Boston University Dept. of Jounralis (sic). There are six students, most of whom are probably smarter than me, but they DON'T READ THE PAPER!!! Not the Globe, Times, Herald or Wall Street Journal. I can shame them into reading, I guess, but why are they taking the course if they don't like to read. But I digress. Now here's the nub of my issue. Of my six students, one (the smartest, wouldn't you know it?) is incredibly hot. If you've ever been to Israel, she's got the sloe eyes and bitchin' bod of the true Sabra. It was all I could do to remember the other five students. I sense danger, Will Robinson."
Mmmm....whoops!
What a thing to say on your first (and presumably, last) day of work.
PS: If you're unsure of what "sloe-eyed" means, it apparently means "Having slanted dark eyes."
"Bitchin' Bod" is a bit more esoteric...
(Stolen from NZPundit)
July 20, 2005
Down on the Farm
It gets lonely up there in the Washington, and with alcohol, even Mr Ed can start to look pretty sexy...
A HORSE lover died of internal injuries from sex with a stallion at a ranch used by a bestiality ring, police in the US state of Washington said today.
The man suffered fatal trauma while being sodomised by a stallion at a stud farm that catered to men who wanted sex with animals, Enumclaw Police Commander Eric Sortland said.
"From the medical examiner's office to the sheriff to the police detectives, we have never seen anything remotely close to what we have in the past two weeks," Sortland said.
You're telling me! Imagine living next to such a farm, watching car after car of seedy men pull in to its driveway, startling the nervous sheep. I guess that's the closest thing an American can get to actually living in New Zealand.
The shocking events at the ranch were exposed after a man's body was dropped off at a hospital south-east of Seattle on July 2 after his encounter with the horse.
"Basically, his colon was ruptured, along with his lower organs in that region, and he bled out," Sortland said.
He liked it rough.
(I love the casual "he was dropped off at a hospital".
I bet they told the doctor -
"Um, he was outside and slipped.
Oh, yeah, he was naked at the time.
And he happened to fall on an erect horse penis.
Yeah, what are the odds?" )
A cache of hundreds of hours of videotaped man-on-beast sex sessions was found hidden in a field, Sortland said.
The animals kept at the farm included ponies, horses, goats, sheep and dogs, according to the police commander.
Images of the flock of offerings on the bestial dude ranch were relayed over the internet and records indicate men had come from throughout the United States, according to police.
"Unfortunately, these people were very diligent in filming their activities," Sortland said of a viewing task detectives have found unpleasant.
Now that's an excuse to call off sick - when you are called into work for an emergency, to be told "We've got three hundred tapes of animal porn...so get some popcorn and start watching!"
The case is being used by state politicians backing a bill that would make it illegal to have sex with beasts, Sortland said.
It scares me that there are some people who HAVE TO BE TOLD NOT TO LET A HORSE STICK ITS PENIS IN THEIR ANUS!
I mean....really!
July 19, 2005
Must be all the apples
Earlier today, whoever was doing the ABC Weather was smoking a bit of the wacky tobaccy, methinks.
It's fixed now, but for a fair portion of the day, it read as follows:
51.2? I can't imagine any Tasmanian living past 30, let alone this.
Oh, and it got weirder, if you clicked on the "Tasmania" weather link:
Fingal must be a happenin' place.
What the hell was going on down there?
July 18, 2005
Rats!
HONG Kong's central business district, famous for gleaming skyscrapers and fashionable bars, is facing an invasion of rats.
Between January and June, the densely populated area's rodent infestation rate swelled to 17 per cent from zero, based on the number of rats attracted to every 100 pieces of bait.
"Central was virtually rat-free a few months ago, then the situation deteriorated. We have to tackle the problem actively," Ho Yuk-yin, a consultant with the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, said.
He attributed the influx to poor vigilance at restaurants in the area's old, rundown buildings and maze of dank alleyways.
from here.
The Next Generation of Outsourcing
It's bad enough that all the adults of the Indian subcontinent are filling the jobs in the Western World's IT sector, now their kid daughters want a piece of the action:
Arfa Karim Randhawa, aged 10, has become the youngest person to be certified as a Microsoft engineer.
Randhawa passed her Microsoft Certified Professional examinations last year. She met Bill Gates this week and was taken on a tour of Microsoft's Redmond campus.
The 10 year-old, from Faisalabad in Pakistan, asked Gates why children were not allowed to work for Microsoft and was told that they should concentrate on their school studies.
But he explained that Microsoft has an intern programme which would be available to her once she reached high school level.
Randhawa also asked why there are so few women in the company, suggesting that Microsoft should have an equal number of men and women.
Gates replied that it is sometimes difficult to get women interested in technology.
After first discovering computers at the age of five Randhawa pestered her father for a PC. She has been accepted into Pakistan's Applied Technologies advanced computer institute.
Randhawa is now a Microsoft Certified Application Developer but plans to become a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, which involves building programs into broader systems for business.
In the longer term she has her sights set on Harvard, or a career at Microsoft.
July 16, 2005
Kids Books are Fun
No posts this weekend - I'm reading Harry Potter and the Mongrel ....uh... Half Blood Prince.
700 pages or so - Should knock it over tonight.
Let's hope it doesn't cause me to pine for this.
UPDATE: Finished...I was right...
WARNING SPOILERS....
...Dumbledore died!
And is Snape (aka Half Blood Prince) evil now? Or is it some dastardly plot twist to throw us off the path?
Hmmm...
July 14, 2005
God, try sticking with ominous clouds.
I've heard of religious omens, but this is ridiculous:
THIN Sandar, a chicken seller in Myanmar, had always dreamed of being a man. When she inexplicably grew a penis last month, the 21-year-old treated it as an awe-inspiring omen - as have the thousands of stunned villagers who have traveled to a pagoda to see him.
Typical, God used to do such cool stuff, like stopping the sun, causing eclipses and smoting thousands, but now he's reduced to transgender surgery.
Here's the rest of this delightful tale.
July 12, 2005
This tastes totally gay.
What a queer thing to drink ....
NORWEGIAN homosexuals are set to launch their own soda brand, "Homo light", at an upcoming gastronomic festival, in the hope that it will help promote tolerance, one of the authors of the project said.
"The goal is not for us to make money but to make us more visible and accepted," Oeystein Mauritzen told AFP.
Pear-flavored and pink, "Homo Light" will go on sale as a one-time offer at a stand at a gastronomic festival in the southwestern town of Stavanger between July 27 and 30.
Along with the soda, which will be sold in half-litre (about a pint) bottles for 20 kroner ($4.70), the group will sell rainbow-colored pasta salads.
New way to look weird discovered
TOKYO - Single or lonely Japanese men may get lucky this Christmas.
One popular item for holiday shoppers is the “lap pillow,” with skin-coloured polyurethene calves folded under soft thighs -- a comfy cushion for napping, reading or watching television.
The 9,429 yen ($90) pillow, which comes with one red and one black skirt, went on sale in late November and maker Trane Co Ltd says shipments have reached 3,000 in just a few weeks.
Here's the rest.
Money Burning a Hole in the Pocket
I have too much money, so I went out and blew some on a digital camera:
About middle of the road - 5 megapixel for you technically minded folks.
'Course, now I gotta learn how to take good photos.
Here's me trying to do a one-armed shot without shaking too much.
Well, better luck with my next shot.
As Ethan Bubblegum Tate said: "Even in these formal pants, I feel like a failure!"
July 11, 2005
Don't make a monkey out of yourself
Life imitates a Simpsons episode:
NASA worker #1: People, we're in danger of losing our funding. America isn't interested in space exploration any more.
NASA worker #2: Maybe we should finally tell them the big secret... that all the chimps we sent into space came back super-intelligent.
Super-intelligent Chimp: No, I don't think we'll be telling them that. (he leaves the room on roller skates)
Like, totally Fantastic!
Jay Pinkerton does the Fantastic Four.
Yay!
But no Jessica Alba.
Booo!!!
(Incidently, Jessica finds naked men funny. Girl, we're over!)
Moron of the Year
Kim du Toit introduces us to the Moron of the Year...
Ouch!
July 09, 2005
CAT BLOGGING XII
This cat loved TV.
Good weekend all.
It'll make you go blind.
Well, it must be true:
Viagra to carry blindness warning
US public health authorities have ordered new warning labels for erectile dysfunction drugs Viagra, Cialis and Levitra reflecting "a small number" of reports of "sudden vision loss" by users of the drugs.
The US Food and Drug Administration said however that "at this time, it is not possible to determine whether these oral medicines for erectile dysfunction were the cause of the loss of eyesight or whether the problem is related to other factors", including high blood pressure or diabetes.
The FDA said the labels would indicate the cases of sudden vision loss, attributed to non arteritic ischemic optic neuropathy, a condition where blood flow is blocked to the optic nerve.
How to prove to the world you're a dick, in one easy step...
...it's a simple step. All you have to do is write a letter to the editor like this:
Australia joined a coalition and bombed Iraq in a preemptive strike, one of our trading partners at the time.
Oh, I love that. Baathist Iraq was merely a "trading partner". Oh, ho, ho, ho!
Thousands of civilians have been killed
Where were you when Saddam was killing hundreds of thousands of civilians (and on fucking purpose, rather than unintentionally)? A bit late off the train, buddy.
I guess some of their surviving family members now want revenge.
The hell? The person who wrote this must have their head firmly planted up their anal passage. Firstly, the main suspect is Syrian, dipshit, and unless you're of the opinion that all Middle-Eastern Muslims are "family", you've got to be talking out of your arse.
Secondly, if we are to assume a wing of Al Qaeda is responsible, why the hell would an Iraqi join a group that is busy maiming and killing his countrymen back in Mesopotamia?
The head of Al Qaeda in Iraq has labelled his "fellow" Muslim Shiites "Dogs...worse than Jews". Not exactly a stirring statement of solidarity, is it?
No, I'm afraid only in the logic of a deranged "EEEVIL AMERIKKKA" wanker does this scenario make any sense at all.
As Harry from Harry's Place explains in a letter to a friend, one of the targets was Moderate Muslims.
Here's a bit that bears thinking about:
Many western "liberals" have simply projected their own concerns about US policy onto the radical Islamists. That is not fair to them: they do NOT share your concerns, but have ones of their own which you would do well to respect. They are not fools or mindless religious fanatics: they are philosophers. You should listen, in particular, to what radical Islamists say, and not what you think they ought to be saying.
So, when hear this:
"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something, we are fighting to
eliminate you." - Hussein Massawi, former head of Hezbollah.
...Don't start entertaining fantasies of radical Islamists fighting to allieviate poverty, or fighting against Imperialism, or Bush, or the refusal to ratify Kyoto or whatever grievance YOU have with the West in general.
Amir Taheri says the same thing:
sorry, old chaps, you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you.
Capice? Well, anyway, let's get to the name of the mug...
U Senff, Terrey Hills
Call it jumping to conclusions, but I bet this guy knows less about the Middle East and the politics of Islamism then the guy who cleans the toilets at work.
So, Mr Senff. May I offer you a hearty: "Get fucked", and take your terrorist apologia elsewhere.
May I note this comes from the Daily Telegraph, usually too sensible to publish lunatic ravings like this. If you want to see a cavalcade of insanity, check out the people who write into the SMH and, especially, the Age.
Well, the Age lets them write opinion pieces as well, thanks to loony English editor Andrew Jaspan.
Do yourself a favour, and read this Hitchens piece in the Mirror instead.
July 08, 2005
Bloody Ell
I had a interesting experience today at work around lunchtime.
You see, I had a strange feeling in my nasal cavity and, naturally, I thought I was getting a runny nose, so I kept wiping it.
Then I looked down at my keyboard.
It was red. Very red - covered in blood in fact.
I turned to a workmate and she nearly screamed. Apparently I had blood smeared all over my face and all down the front of my shirt.
So then, of course, I tried to clean it up and spent the rest of the afternoon doing all those daft things with your nose that apparently prevent nosebleeds.
None of which, worked, naturally. Luckily, it just gave up in the end.
So there you go - I'm sure you're all happy to know that delightful little tidbit.
Back to Business
I don't want to end for the weekend on a down note, nor do I want to disappoint my resident anti-semitic troll, so here's another article on Chinese sexual dysfunction.
Survey reveals Chinese 'sex idiots'
Chinese are more ignorant about sex than any other subject, the official Xinhua news agency quoted a sex expert as saying.
Jesus. Sex Expert - surely one of the most pointless jobs ever. Except maybe this.
"In the survey we conducted, not only youngsters but many grown-ups are sex idiots, which is really dangerous and woeful," Xinhua quoted Xu Tianming, president of the China Sexology Society, as telling a seminar.
"More Chinese are ignorant about sex than about other knowledge, even including those having received higher education and experts of other fields," he was quoted as saying.
Xu himself demonstrated a unique understanding of the subject, saying people could only enjoy a normal sex life until the age of 25.
Oh, great! Thanks for telling me that only now. Goody, two more years of a "normal" sex life. Hopefully they mean it gets better....
He added that meant teenagers should be allowed to socialise more freely with members of the opposite sex.
"Parents and society should allow them to have normal contacts with the opposite sex, such as dancing, and to read some books with certain sex descriptions," Xu said.
Reading erotica will help the sexually dysfunctional? Interesting theory...
Why not just buy this guys?
Attitudes about sex have relaxed since Communist China began market reforms in the late 1970s, opening the doors to teenage dating and also creating a huge increase in adultery and divorce.
Oh, boo hoo.
More on the London Bombings
I'll fly the flag, in this case.
I don't really have anything more to say on this, but I advise you to read these two takes on it.
Norm also counts the ways...
July 07, 2005
Terror Attacks in London
Cowardly Shitheads have hit London with terrorist attacks - at least seven explosions have been reported.
Most likely intended to coincide with the G8 Meetings in Scotland.
Tim Blair has ongoing coverage and links to Brit Blogs.
UPDATE 1: Tim Worstall is also blogging up a storm.
Lots of links at Instapundit.
UPDATE 2: The Watcher shows that it's business as usual at the favourite hang-out for the mentally retarded, Indymedia.
UPDATE 3: Blair's speech can be read here.
No Double Dipping
I always suspected there was something weird about bisexuals.
MALE bisexuality does not exist, psychologists in the US have claimed.
A new study concludes that the large majority of men purporting to be bisexual are actually gay, while the rest are more likely to be heterosexual.
Senior author Michael Bailey, from Northwestern University in Chicago, said: "Bisexual male behaviour certainly exists, but the study suggests that a bisexual orientation, an actual sexual preference for both men and women, does not exist in men. If such men exist, they are certainly very rare and we didn't find them."
Researchers recruited 101 young adult men, 33 identifying themselves as bisexual, 30 straight and 38 homosexual.
They were questioned at length about their sexuality before being seated alone in a laboratory to watch erotic films while their arousal levels were monitored by a sensor.
Gay men were aroused by images of men, while heterosexual men were aroused by women. But psychologists said those claiming to be bisexual were only aroused by one or the other - 75per cent by men and the rest by women.
Dr Bailey said some men claim to be bisexual as it is easier than admitting to being gay, while others might consider it some kind of achievement and be proud to swing both ways.
I had suspicions "bisexuality" was just about looking cool. Now I know!
PS: Sounds like a fun experiment to participate in: "Hey, wanna watch some porn? You must get aroused, ok?"
Somewhere, the world's smallest violin is playing
Sorry, can't resist:
AS Britain's newspapers toasted London's 2012 Olympic Games victory, The Sun roasted French President Jacques Chirac.
In a nail-biting contest in Singapore, London beat arch-rival Paris and three other cities last night to land the biggest sporting show on earth.
The Sun could not resist the chance to lash Chirac after London's win stunned Paris, including a breakout on its front page that read: "We don't mean to gloat ... but see pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 40, 41 and five pages of SunSport."
The tabloid baked the "blundering president" a humble pie and blasted Chirac's "strutting arrogance" for his "uncouth attack" on British cuisine in the run-up to the bid.
It suggested Chirac might also try "coq-up au vin, stuffed frog, hard cheese and sour grapes washed down with French 'whines'".
Other newspapers rounded on the French leader with the Daily Mail running two pages under the headline "Who's laughing now, Mr Chirac?" and branding him "staggeringly inept".
"What put a spring in the step of every red-blooded Englishman yesterday was the spectacle of France's discomfort," it said.
I like the following:
July 06, 2005
Shock - Frenchman acts like a dick!
Jacques attack threatens Paris
THE anti-British jokes were flying thick and fast when French President Jacques Chirac met Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
Unfortunately for Mr Chirac, the highly undiplomatic gibes about mad cow disease and bad British food, made during a break in a three-way summit meeting in Russia at the weekend, were overheard by journalists.
Apparently unaware his microphone was on, the President claimed Britain's only contribution to European agriculture was mad cow disease.
He then turned to the subject of British cooking. "We can't trust people who have such bad food," he said. "After Finland, it's the country with the worst food."
He also suggested that France's troubles with NATO began after its Scottish former secretary-general Lord Robertson offered him a local Scottish speciality - apparently a reference to haggis - to eat.
Ooh? Mock the Scots, eh, frenchy? I guess that's a sign the Auld Alliance is truly dead.
Here's a good Blackadder quote which I think illustrates everything you need to know about the French:
M: Bonjour, monsieur.
E: What?
M: Bonjour, monsieur -- it's French.
E: So is eating frogs, cruelty to geese and urinating in the street, but that's no reason to inflict it on the rest of us.
UPDATE: Suck shit, Frenchy! I bet that humble haggis is tasting pretty fucking sweet now you Gallic ponce.
July 05, 2005
The Chinese - Also bad in the sack!
A happy reader writes:
"Why you always pick on the chinese you dirty jew boy. their better than you."
Hey, possibly. (They probably also know how to spell "They're", and capitalise the beginning of their sentences.), but to be fair, I really only picked on them once.
Ok, make that twice:
Duds in the sack
HONG Kongers usually rank near-bottom of the international list of lovers and a social worker may have discovered why: they don't know what to do between the sheets.
Grace Wong of the southern Chinese territory's Family Planning Association said the number of inquiries at her agency rocketed 50 percent last year, with many clients claiming to have no idea how to have sex.
"Some married couples are not familiar with their body parts," Wong was quoted as telling the Sunday Morning Post. "They don't know where their sex organs are.
"They don't know the physical changes associated with sexual response, like males getting an erection," she added.
Doctor, everytime I think about my wife, I get this horrible swelling...
(whisper, whisper).
Oh.
Regular international surveys by condom manufacturers have found the city is less than amorous. Durex's last poll found Hong Kongers get it together 79 times a year, while the French manage it the most, at 137 times.
Maybe this is the reason for the French doing it so often. It can get boring staying at home...
Another poll even suggested Hong Kong men prefer to go to work rather than have sex.
The frenetic work ethic in the former British colony is usually blamed for interfering with the course of nature.
But the paper said sociologists believe Chinese sensibilities, which deem discussion of sex even in school as taboo, are responsible.
Then why am I getting Chinese-language Viagra spam?
UPDATE: Here's the accompanying picture, by the way:
Caption: Lovers get intimate ... but not in Hong Kong, it would seem
Hehe.
July 04, 2005
Internode - You Just Made the List
My ISP, Internode has been well behaved up until now, whereupon its mail server has decided to have a bit of the wacky-tobaccy.
Not only can I seem to not be able to send any mail, I'm also receiving previous mail sent to me multiple times.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Where's Bruce Willis when you need him?
Didn't they try this on the Simpsons?
US scientists have successfully collided a space projectile head-on with a comet hurtling in the solar system as part of an experiment to study its core, NASA officials said.
And isn't that a movie with Ben Affleck in it?
"That's awesome! That's awesome!" flight control officials shouted after the impact was confirmed. "We hit just exactly where we wanted to."
Like, totally!
Sex Sells
You can sell anything with sex.
You can even "unsell" some things - like cigarettes!
The British government has launched a series of tough anti-cigarette adverts with the message that smoking is bad for your sex life because it makes men impotent and women ugly.
The campaign is designed to target young Britons' fears about their sexual attractiveness - an area the government says is more effective than highlighting general health concerns.
One ad uses a burning cigarette end between two "fingerlegs" as a metaphor for a penis with the strapline "Does smoking make you hard? Not if it means you can't get it up."
Another targets women saying cigarettes lead to premature skin aging and warns that smoking causes "cat's bum mouth."
"We know 70 percent of smokers want to stop smoking, however, with younger people, fears about attractiveness and fertility can be a stronger motivation to quit than fears about health," said Public Health Minister Caroline Flint.
The government says smoking increases the risk of erectile dysfunction by around 50 percent for men in their 30s and 40s and that up to 120,000 British men in this age group were impotent as a result of smoking.
July 03, 2005
It'll cure what ails ya...
I'm glad I'm not at this stage yet:
The 12 teenagers and young adults, some in ripped jeans and baggy T-shirts, sit in a circle, chewing gum and fidgeting as they shyly introduce themselves.
"I'm 12 years old," one boy says with a smile. "I love playing computer games. That's it."
Another boy, five years older with spiky hair, adds: "It's been good to sleep."
The hell? Freak.
The youths are patients at China's first officially licensed clinic for internet addiction, a downside of the online frenzy that has accompanied the nation's breathtaking economic boom.
Their days begin at 6am on a machine that stimulates nerve impulses with 30V charges to pressure points. Other treatments include receiving a clear fluid through intravenous drips to "adjust the unbalanced status of brain secretions".
The youths usually stay 10 to 15 days, at $48 a day - a high price in a country where the average city dweller's weekly income is just $20.
Sounds a little drastic, you know?
Says a youth from Beijing: "It would be hard to give it up completely. I'll take it step by step."
So in this gentle program of detox, the first step involves freaking
ELECTRIC SHOCK THERAPY AND AN INTRAVENOUS DRIP? God, I'd hate to see a last minute, drastic, last-resort sort of treatment. It would probably be something like this.
July 01, 2005
Human Race Doomed
SPANISH men will be required to scrub toilets and change nappies as often as their harried wives under revolutionary reforms aimed at shattering the traditionally macho Latin nation's patriarchal division of labour in the home.
Putting in legislation to "guarantee" this is possibly the daftest thing I've ever heard.
Except of course, for the accompanying picture and caption:
Housework: Is this the man of the future?
By the looks of the picture, I think they mean the man of the future will be gay.
Well, so much for the human race. I guess cloning will be an option.
...And the fish was literally THIS BIG!
Oh. My. Gawd.
Men catch 300kg monster catfish
A-Polling Greens
Chief Bastard's hijinx with the polls on the Greens site has attracted attention:
(From the dead-tree edition of the Daily Telegraph - hence no link)
Caught in a web of startling revelations - by Malcolm Farr
More than 80 per cent of the Greens believe the Government should keep asylum seekers in mandatory detention centres.
Well, that's one interpretation of a poll on the Greens web site, which is taking a startling detour from party policy.
The overwhelming number of respondents, up to 84 per cent at one point, selected "Make no change to the harsh current situation"
Heh.
EEEEEEEEEVIL!!
That's a pretty wimpy effort by me.
Maybe I should post more on Tom Cruise.